Story of the 
World War 

For Young People 



By 
William L. Nida 



A Concise and Simple Story of the 
First Three Years of the War 



HALE BOOK CO 

Oak Park, 111. 



STORY OF THE 

WORLD WAR 

For 
Young People 



BY - 



WILLIAM Lv NIDA 

Superintendent of Schools, River Forest, Illinois. 

Author of 

'Dawn of American History," "City, State and Nation," Etc. 



POSTPAID 30fr EACH 



HALE BOOK CO. 

OAK PARK. ILLINOIS 






COPYRIGHT, 1917 

BY 
WILLIAM L. NIDA 

Published August, 1917 



SEP 1/ iSt/ 
©CU47S468 
1^-^ f , 



FOREWORD 

A complete and impartial history of the World 
War cannot be written for some years, but the main 
facts, including the causes of the terrible struggle, 
are known today. Inasmuch as our soldiers are risk- 
ing their lives on European battlefields, our boys 
and girls are eager to know what it is all about. 
They want to read about the war in language that 
they can understand. Teachers are bewildered with 
the great mass of material not yet put in small 
enough compass for pupil and teacher to use in the 
school room. 

The author of this book asked his upper grade 
teachers to teach the facts of this war even if the 
history of other wars had to be eliminated to do it, 
and met with this reply: ''How can we teach what 
we ourselves do not know? Give us a book to guide 
us." Realizing that few teachers have either the 
time or the historical training needed to sift and 
organize the mass of information in print about the 
war today, the author has prepared this volume as 
a foundation upon which to build a study of the con- 
flict that is occupying our deepest interests. 

We are no longer an isolated nation. We must 
teach our children the main facts and tendencies 
of world events. The study of the War can be made 
the basis of a wider study of present world history 
so that we may all understand the part we are play- 
ing in international affairs. 

So at the risk of some revision upon the raising 
of the censorship, the author has ventured to write 
this account for the boys and girls about the 
momentous affairs of today. 

William L. Nida. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

1 — The Rise of the German Empire 5 

2 — The Kaiser and His World Dream 14 

3— The Story of the Balkan Comitries 20 

4 — Europe Takes Fire 25 

5 — How Europe Had Prepared for this War 31 

6— The Campaign of 1914 39 

7— The Work of England's Fleet 48 

8— New Methods of Warfare 53 

9— The War in the Air 57 

10— The Campaign of 1915 67 

11 — Attempt to Take the Dardanelles 74 

12— The Campaign of 1916 81 

13 — Roumania Conquered — 1916 89 

14— The Czar Loses His Throne 93 

15 — Submarine Warfare 97 

16— The United States Enters the War 100 

17 — ^Why We Are at War with Germany 109 

18 — America's Aid to Her Allies 112 

Pershing Leads Our Men to France. 
The Food Supply. 
The Liberty Loan. 

19— Campaign of 1917 115 

Battles of Arras and Messines. 
British Take Bagdad. 
Russia Drives on Lemberg. 
Appendix — President Wilson's War Message 122 



CHAPTER I 
THE RISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

In August, 1914, a terrible world calamity took 
place. All the great nations of Europe were declared 
to be at arms. On July 22nd of that year the world 
was at peace, but from this time one event followed 
another with lightning speed and within twelve days 
all Europe was ablaze. The Central Powers of 
Germany and Austria were at war with the Allies, 
Russia, France, Great Britain, Serbia and Belgium. 
Some time later Turkey and Bulgaria joined the 
Germans, while Japan, Italy and Roumania entered 
the war on the side of the Allies. Now after nearly 
three years of horrible strife our own United States 
has entered the conflict on the side of the Allies and 
very recently Greece has declared war with Ger- 
many. 

In order to understand what this awful world war 
is about we must know something of the history of 
Germany during the last fifty years, for it is largely 
the ambition of the German Kaiser and his war 
lords to rule Europe that has brought on this ter- 
rible conflict. And we must also know a brief story 
of the Balkan country, that great peninsula lying 
between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea, for it 
is this country of the Balkans that the German war 
lords are determined to possess and rule as their 
first step toward world dominion. 

Let us go back a few years and find how Germany 
came to be the great united Empire she is today. 



6 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAR 

When the wars of Napoleon closed there were in Ger- 
many thirty-nine different states and four independ- 
PRUssiA AND ent cities, each with its own ruler. Of 
AUSTRIA these thirty-nine different govern- 

ments there were two leading ones. They were the 
Kingdom of Prussia and the Empire of Austria. 
Austria was then the strongest fighting power and 
for that reason was able to force its wishes upon all 
the other German states. Prussia was only a little 
kingdom and, though it had been considered one of 
the five great powers of Europe, it had been greatly 
weakened by long wars and had lost many thousands 
of its men. 

But from this little Kingdom of Prussia came the 
power that built up the united Empire of Germany. 
This was done through the wonderful mind and 
leadership of one man, Otto von Bismarck. 

In 1862 King William I. of Prussia made Bis- 
marck his adviser. For the next thirty years 
BISMARCK AS Bismarck was the greatest figure in 
CHANCELLOR Europe. He came from an obscure fam- 
ily of the country landed aristocracy. He believed 
that it was the Prussian kings and not the Prussian 
people that had made his own kingdom great, so he 
favored giving the king more power and was firmly 
opposed to allowing the people any voice in their 
government. Wlien William I. granted a constitu- 
tion to Prussia, Bismarck was enraged. He said he 
hated democracy and the rule of the common people. 
He was an aristocrat to his finger tips. 

Bismarck seemed to be the one German that under- 
stood the cause of his country's weakness. He also 
had been an exceedingly keen observer of all German 
affairs and he had come to feel it was a mistake to 
have so many small states in Germany. Many years 



THE RISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 7 

before he had said that there was not room in Ger- 
many for both Prussia and Austria and that one or 
the other must bend. He kept saying there were 
too many little states and he would have them all 
united in one nation with Prussia as its head. He 
argued that the only way to bring about this union 
was by war, for he believed that the great questions 
of the day are settled by blood and iron. 

When Bismarck came into power as adviser to 
the King of Prussia, the first thing he advised was 
to smash Austria. To do this he needed a strong 
new military tool. So Bismarck and King William 
proceeded to get this tool ready. They built up a 
great army by demanding military service of every 
man. Every able-bodied young Prussian was called 
to serve for at least two years in the army. Some 
of the people of Prussia objected to this forced mili- 
tary service, but the King, encouraged by Bismarck, 
had his own way about it. 

In good time Bismarck thought Prussia was strong 
enough to master Austria so they looked for some 
WAR ON excuse to begin the trouble. The people 
DENMARK of the two Danish provinces of Schleswig 
and Holstein were trying to throw off the rule of 
Denmark. This was Bismarck's chance to test his 
new army with little risk and also his opportunity to 
pick a quarrel with Austria. Sixty thousand Prus- 
sians and Austrians seized the territory in dispute. 
They easily defeated Denmark and forced her to give 
up the two provinces. But then Austria and Prussia 
could not agree about who should have them. Aus- 
tria wished to make them into a separate state and 
this was also the wish of the people of the 
conquered provinces, but Bismarck was determined 
to add them to Prussia so as to extend her coast line 



8 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

and secure some excellent harbors, especially the one 
at Kiel. He said there were too many small states 
in Germany already. This dispute soon led to war 
between Austria and Prussia as Bismarck had 
foreseen. 

Bismarck had great faith that his new army could 
fight. The next thing was to prove it to the Aus- 
trians. The Prussians had adopted as their field 
rifle the breech-loading weapon known as the needle 
gun. It had a long range, considerably beyond that 
of the old-fashioned, smooth-bore musket. When a 
zealous young Austrian officer reported this to his 
superiors the only answer was, "The battalions of 
Austria will sweep away these piff-paff soldiers 
like dust." 

In 1866 the opportunity came to "sweep away'* 
the Prussians. Prussia forced the war upon Austria, 
PRUSSIA AND AUSTRIA and Italy helped Prussia. The 
AT WAR, 1866 marvelous new military sys- 

tem of the Prussians worked like a clock, and Prus- 
sia struck her enemy with such speed as to amaze 
Europe. The great general of this war was Von 
Moltke. In the years before the war he had planned 
all the campaigns, and he now saw them come out 
just as he had planned them. 

Von Moltke sent three armies into Austro-Hun- 
gary by different routes. They met the Austrians 
at Sadowa. King William, Bismarck, and Von 
Moltke took up their position on a hill from which 
they could view the battle. The struggle was long 
and doubtful. It began in the early morning. For 
hours the armies fought with terrific fury. Up until 
two o 'clock it seemed to be an Austrian victory. But 
then the Prussian Crown Prince arrived with his 
army and turned the tide. At half past three the 



THE RISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 9 

Austrian army was beaten and had begun the retreat. 
They had lost about 40,000 men, while the Prussians 
had lost but 10,000. Austria acknowledged her 
defeat, and Bismarck, who feared France might 
join Austria, gladly gave her easy terms. The war 
lasted only about six weeks. 

Now that the war was over and Austria subdued, 
what was Bismarck's next step? Prussia was 
anxious to punish Austria by taking the Bohemian 
frontier from her. When Bismarck learned this, it 
is said he burst into a torrent of weeping. He 
declared it would wreck all his plans and make Aus- 
tria a lasting enemy of Prussia. He thought Prus- 
sia would some day need Austria's help. The King 
finally listened to Bismarck and the only penalty 
exacted from Austria was that she should leave the 
other German states alone and let Prussia manage 
them as best she could. Thus Austria was forced 
out of German affairs and Prussia became the lead- 
ing state in Germany. 

Prussia now got all the north German states, 
twenty-two in all, to form a North German Confeder- 
ation. The King of Prussia was made President of 
the Federation. Bismarck wrote up the constitu- 
tion and was careful to see that Prussia had enough 
power to control all important matters. 

Still Germany was not yet a unit. There were 
several independent south German states that were 
FRANCO-PRUSSIAN influenced by Austria on the east 
WAR, 1870 and by France on the west. 

France was then supposed to be the strongest mili- 
tary power in Europe, but Prussia had no fear of 
France, single-handed. Bismarck made the south 
German states believe that the French were going 
to take some of their territory and thus gained their 



10 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAB 

consent to join hands with the German Confedera- 
tion in a war. Bismarck said that the way to 
complete the union of the German states was to 
engage them all in a war against some other nation. 
Accordingly, he trumped up a quarrel with France 
as to who should sit on the throne of Spain. When 
Bismarck published in the press the story of this 
trouble with France, he told it in a way that was 
most insulting to France. He said he "intended it to 
be a red rag for the French bull. ' ' His plan was to 
anger France so she would declare war. Then Ger- 
many might pose before the world as merely fighting 
in self-defense. France declared war in 1870 and 
the south German states joined the North German 
Confederation as Bismarck had planned. 

The French army was poorly prepared compared 
with the splendidly drilled Prussian soldiers. One 
French army was shut up in the strong fortress of 
Metz and besieged. The other French army surren- 
dered at Sedan, and the French emperor was taken 
prisoner. Within six weeks the French empire had 
fallen and a republic was proclaimed in that country. 
In eight weeks the Germans were at the gates of 
Paris. 

Immense stores had been collected at Paris, and 
the citizens were armed to defend their capital city. 
The French astonished the world with their splendid 
defense. It is interesting to know that aircraft 
figured in this siege when Gambetta and other lead- 
ers escaped from Paris by balloon and organized new 
armies outside. But they had no time to drill the 
new recruits, and they failed to break through the 
great circle of iron that surrounded the city. After 



THE EISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 11 

a remarkable siege of four months, Paris was 
starved out and obliged to surrender to the Germans. 

France was absolutely crushed. Germany took 
from her the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and 
compelled the French people to pay to the Germans 
an immense war indemnity of a billion dollars. 

The work of making Germany a united nation was 
now practically done. While the German army was 
GERMANY still in Paris a communication was sent 
UNITED to King William of Prussia by the King 
of Bavaria, asking King William to become Emperor 
of Germany. We now know that the letter was 
written by Bismarck. In 1871 in the great hall of 
the palace of Versailles, which was then occupied 
by the German army, William was crowned and 
given the title of German Emperor. 

But in realizing his ambition, Bismarck had made 
some mistakes. Although his ideal of uniting the 
German states into one great power was a good one, 
he had done an irreparable wrong to France. He 
had provoked the war with France and then forced 
the French to pay the cost. An indemnity of a bil- 
lion dollars was a terrible burden in those days, but 
the French people worked, industriously and paid it 
off in a few years. 

The thing the French nation never forgave Ger- 
many was the taking of its territory. Germany has 
been for forty years trying to Germanize the two 
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. She forbade 
them to use their native language of French in their 
schools and churches. It was as if they had taken 
the New England states from us and tried to con- 
vert all the people into Germans. Now we know 
that any people clings to its mother tongue with a 
death grip, and no amount of force will compel them 



12 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

to give it up gracefully. France promised herself 
that some day she would recover these provinces 
from Germany and, looking forward to another war, 
sought an ally in Eussia. 

Bismarck's work now seemed to be done. He had 
accomplished what seemed at the outset to be an 
BISMARCK'S impossibility. He had made from the 
RULE thirty-nine small German states a 

nation greater even than Russia or Austro-Hungary. 
He was looked upon as the greatest German states- 
man since the days of Charlemagne. But the day 
has now come when we heartily condemn him for his 
criminal action in robbing a neighboring country and 
causing a bitterness which had to be redeemed in 
the blood of this generation. 

Bismarck was the real ruler of Germany for more 
than thirty years, though he was merely called the 
Chancellor. He has been given the name of the 
"Iron Chancellor" because of his grim determina- 
tion to make his country great no matter what the 
cost. What was right was not the consideration in 
his mind. His only question was: "Is Germany 
strong enough to- do this thing?" His gospel was: 
"Might makes right," which is the gospel of a sav- 
age, and this is the creed of German war lords today. 
They are trampling upon weaker nations with 
astounding cruelty. 

Bismarck, knowing that France was longing for 
revenge, made a triple alliance with Russia and 
Austria against France. But this did not last for 
both Russia and Austria had been ambitious to get 
control of Constantinople and the straits leading 
from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. Russia 
wished it for a warm waterway for her commerce 
and Germany and Austria both desired to possess 



THE RISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 13 

the Balkan states of Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, 
Eoumania, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

After a time war occurred between Russia and 
Turkey. Russia was about to take Constantinople 
THE DUAL AND wheu Germany and Austria inter- 
TRiPLE ALLIANCES veued and robbed Russia of lier 
victory over Turkey. A part of Turkey, which had 
been conquered by the Russians, was given to Aus- 
tria. The Czar said: ''Bismark has forgotten his 
promise of 1870. ' ' The provinces which fell to Aus- 
trian control were Bosnia and Herzegovina, both of 
which were peopled with Slavs or natives of Russia 
and should have gone to Serbia or Russia or some 
other Slav country. 

Then Russia was ready to break with Germany 
and to make an alliance with France. Italy at this 
time was angered at France for seizing Tunis, as 
Italy wanted that part of Africa for a colony, so 
Italy joined the alliance of German and Austria. 
Thus we have the Dual Alliance of France and Rus- 
sia and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austro- 
Hungary and Italy. This was the line-up of friends 
and enemies when this great world war broke out. 

Bismarck was still Chancellor when the present 
Kaiser William II. came to the throne of the German 
Empire in 1888. William II. was young, able and 
full of ambition to rule. He believes his right to 
rule comes from heaven and not from the people 
and as he did his own thinking he soon quarreled 
with Bismarck and dismissed him. 



CHAPTER II 
THE KAISER'S DREAM OF WORLD EMPIRE 

Since 1890 the Kaiser lias been the deciding voice 
in all German affairs. During these last twenty-five 
years Germany has developed her industries and her 
commerce in a remarkable manner. In both these 
respects she has become the rival of England and the 
United States. In fact, she has been rapidly out- 
stripping them in trade and industry. 

In this time Germany has acquired a number of 
colonies in Africa, China and the Eastern seas. 
But though her colonies have cost her a great deal, 
she has not known how to develop them with the 
success of England. The Kaiser has also in this 
time built up a large navy". He is ambitious to have 
the German Empire as powerful on the seas as she 
has been on the land for the last fifty years, so that 
nothing shall be done on sea or on land without her 
consent. 

Thus Germany is a great country, rich and power- 
ful, with an industrious and splendidly educated 
GERMANY people. But her citizens are not free. 
NOT FREE "The German nation," said Prince von 
Bulow, who was for many years Chancellor of Ger- 
many, "has been denied the right to rule itself." 
Germany has a constitution and a parliament but 
they do not give self-rule to the people. Vast power 
is bestowed upon the emperor. The Kaiser has 
even the right to declare war or make peace. This 
is a dangerous power to put in the hands of one 



THE KAISER'S DREAM OE WORLD EMPIRE 15 

man. In our country only Congress, wliicli directly 
represents the people, can declare war. Kaiser Wil- 
liam is responsible to no one. He has said : "There 
is only one master of the nation. That is I. I will 
abide no other, ' ' and again, ' ' I look upon the people 
and the nation as a responsibility conferred upon 
me by God. Those who try to interfere with my task 
I shall crush." 

As a sample of his spirit he is quoted as saying 
to a regiment of his soldiers: "I would rather see 
my forty-five million Prussians dead on the field of 
battle than to see one foot of the soil taken in 1870 
from the French restored to them." At another 
time in addressing a body of recruits the Kaiser is 
reported to have said : '^Now that you have donned 
my uniform it must be your pleasure and duty to 
follow my wishes, realizing that I rule Germany by 
the direct will of God. You must willingly obey my 
commands even though I require you to shoot down 
your own fathers and brothers in response to my 
dictates." And so submissive have become the mil- 
lions of German soldiers after years of this training 
that today they would probably fire upon their own 
people if ordered to do so by their officers. This 
kind of obedience makes good soldiers, but unthink- 
ing citizens. 

When Bismarck drew up the constitution of the 
Empire he fashioned the government so that Prussia 
PRUSSIAN should have the balance of power and the 
NOBILITY Kaiser might rule. ''Prussia," said 
Prince von Bulow, "is to this day a state of soldiers 
and officials." The Kaiser appoints nobles, and 
nobles only, to his high offices. Only a noble can 
be chancellor or minister. The Kaiser chooses only 
nobles as officers of his army and navy. He makes 



16 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR 

the Prussian nobility the ruling caste. Through 
Prussia these officials and war lords rule the Empire. 
The noble class is in turn ruled by the Kaiser, 
but they are content. This is what we mean when 
we speak of German militarism. We mean a govern- 
ment by the Kaiser and his soldier class. 

In America and other democratic countries we 
hold that one man is as good as another, and that all 
shall have an equal voice in the government. We 
would not tolerate being ruled by a class of soldiers 
and aristocrats. 

Now if you will look at the map you will observe 
that Germany has very little sea coast except that on 
GERMANY the Baltic Sea. This lack of good ports 
HEMMED IN hinders her world trade. The Empire 
is too much hemmed in to suit its rulers. A great 
and powerful nation must have room to grow. Ger- 
many is a manufacturing country and in order to 
trade freely with other nations needs more con- 
venient harbors. 

England controls the sea. All the strategic sea 
routes of the world except the newly completed 
Panama Canal, belong to England. She has Gib- 
raltar, the Suez Canal, Singapore and innumerable 
islands the world over that have naval bases on 
them. These give England a great advantage in 
trade and commerce, and these are the very things 
Germany wishes to develop. 

Since Germany has not been very successful in 
establishing colonies, and as England has always 
kept her navy far in advance of that of the Germans, 
there was nothing else for Germany to do but to look 
forward to a better sea coast outlet for her trade and 
to become a great land empire. The Kaiser was 
determined to extend his frontiers and he kept the 



THE KAISER'S DREAM OF WORLD EMPIRE 17 

largest army of the world ready for the first oppor- 
tunity to strike for more territory. In fact, the 
war lords were more than willing to make an 
opportunity on the slightest excuse. 

They have looked with eager eyes on the coal 
and iron lands of Belgium and northern France and 
WOELD coveted the fine harbors of these coun- 
GEBMANY tries. They long to get control of the 
wheat and oil lands of Eoumania and they want a 
chance to overflow into the garden spot of the Tigris 
and Euphrates valleys which are only waiting for 
irrigation to make them some of the most fruitful 
regions of the world. Above all, they have desired 
the Dardanelles with its strategic position domi- 
nating the whole of the Black Sea country. 

In short, the German dream has long been to 
build up a great empire extending from the Baltic 
Sea to the Persian Gulf. It was to be held together 
by a line of railroad which descends from Hamburg 
through Berlin to Vienna and thence to Constanti- 
nople. From here it passes through Asia Minor, 
where it forks, one branch going down to the Persian 
Gulf through Bagdad and' the other to Suez and 
Mecca. Germany secured secret permission from 
Turkey to build the Bagdad railway. This railway 
is not yet complete, but it is designed to bring Ger- 
man armies to the frontier of Egypt and eventually 
to India, where they may threaten the British 
Empire by land. Germany's railroad to the Persian 
Gulf would be shorter than England's sea route and 
would give the Germans the advantage in trade with 
the East. 

But in order to carry out this dream it was 
necessary for Germany to gain possession of Turkey 
and the Balkans. Austria is an ally of Germany and 



18 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

is dominated by her. Together they exerted every 
effort to get the Turks and Bulgars to join them in 
the war. In fact, we now feel sure that Germany 
had secret treaties binding these countries to aid her. 
The object in coveting the Balkans was to get control 
not only of the land, but of the railroad to Con- 
stantinople. Germany also planned to conquer Bel- 
gium and extend her rule as far south as Calais or 
Brest in France so that she might have a port on the 
English Channel or the Atlantic. Eiga on the Baltic 
was an Eastern port that she desired. 

In short, there seemed to be no limit to the 
ambition and conceit of this German dream. Per- 
haps it is only natural for them to feel that their 
nation and training are superior to all others on 
earth, but their ambition to encircle the earth and 
Germanize other countries by sheer force, destroying 
weaker nations without mercy or excuse, does not 
meet with the sympathy of the rest of the world. 

This scheme of German leaders has long been 
urged. The war lords have written many books and 
distributed them among their people urging the 
extension of their territory. The citizens of Ger- 
many are trained to listen to the voice of the ruling 
class and they were beginning to feel that they had 
a perfect right to seize the best portions of Europe 
for themselves. 

In many respects we all admit the greatness of 
Germany and her people. German cities are better 
GERMAN governed than ours. There is less 

ErnciENCY graft and more efficiency in their 

methods than in ours. The Germans have reduced 
many things to a science besides war. They put 
experts in charge of all their work. They use scien- 
tific methods in manufacture and in business. Now 



THE KAISER'S DREAM OF WORLD EMPIRE 19 

science leads to thoroughness and efficiency and so 
the Germans excel other peoples in many ways. 

But the Germans have come to worship science 
until they think of nothing else. The questions of 
right and wrong, peace, and love and sympathy for 
the weak and helpless — in a word. Christian behavior 
— is far more to be worshipped than science. "We 
stand for right, for brotherly love and a square deal, 
for a chance for every nation to live its life in its 
own way. Upon all these principles of right Ger- 
many has trampled with unheard of cruelty to carry 
out her ambition based upon ' ' Might makes right. ' ' 
Against this ambition the world fights, fourteen 
nations against four. 



CHAPTER III 
THE STORY OF THE BALKAN COUNTRIES 

In order to understand this war we must also 
know something of the history of the Balkan coun- 
tries which occupy the whole of the great peninsula 
between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea. In this 
peninsula are now the nations of Greece, Turkey, 
Bulgaria, Roumania, Serbia, Montenegro and the 
two provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which 
Austria has seized. 

The Turks captured Constantinople in 1453 and 
laid hold upon nearly all of the Balkan countries. 
This date is an important one in our history, for it 
was this that closed the trade route of Genoa to 
the East and finally brought about the discovery of 
America. The Turks not only seized the Balkans, 
but they threatened and terrified all western Europe. 
In time they were checked by European armies, but 
they placed a heavy yoke upon the Balkan states. 

The Turks had only contempt for the people whom 
they had conquered. They did not try to mould them 
into a nation, but were satisfied to make them their 
subjects and exploit them. The Christian peoples 
were oppressed by the Mohammedan Turks for sev- 
eral hundred years. Their property was taken and 
their lives also, whenever it suited their Turkish 
rulers. They bore their ills as best they might, long- 
ing for liberation and hating the Turks with a 
deathless hatred. 

In the next two hundred years Turkey steadily 



THE STORY OF THE BALKAN COUNTRIES 21 

lost ground. Eussia and Austria first despoiled her 
THE SICK MAN of some of her valuable land. Then 
or THE EAST ]ier own subjects arose to throw off 
her galling yoke. The Balkan country has from this 
time been a knotty problem for all of Europe. It 
has been clear that the savage Turks were in the end 
to be driven from Europe and the burning question 
has been when this should happen who would get 
possession of her empire and particularly who would 
control Constantinople and the outlet from the Black 
Sea, otherwise known as the Dardanelles. This has 
been spoken of as the Eastern Question and Turkey 
has for years been known as the ''Sick Man of the 
East." Many nations of Europe have aspired 
to control the Dardanelles and to possess 
Constantinople. 

The Serbians first threw off the Turkish rule after 
a long, hard contest. The Turks were driven out of 
Serbia, and Belgrade became the capital. Next the 
Greeks arose against their oppressor and for six 
years bitterly fought the Turks alone. Then other 
nations came to the rescue, and Greece became a 
nation independent of Turkey in 1829. 

In 1853 Russia started to drive the Turks from 
Europe, but England and France, to their shame, 
THE CRIMEAN Came to the aid of Turkey. England 
W-^^ did this because she feared with Rus- 

sia in control of Constantinople, England's route to 
the east through the Suez Canal would be in peril. 
France had a grudge against Russia for defeating 
Napoleon years before, so she stooped with England 
to help the cruel Turks. This war was known as 
the Crimean War. It did not solve the Eastern 
question, for Turkey was left in possession of the 
Dardanelles and Russia was defeated. The Sultan 



22 STOEY OF THE WOKLD WAR 

of Turkey promised better treatment of his Christian 
subjects if he were allowed to keep his territory. He 
did not keep his promise, however, but treated them 
even worse than before. 

In 1866 Roumania claimed and won her indepen- 
dence from Turkey. The Roumanians were descend 
ants of the Romans. The Bulgarians next rose 
against the Turks, but their masters butchered them 
by the thousands and destroyed sixty-five of their 
villages with indescribable cruelty. The atrocity of 
their crimes filled all Europe with horror. Glad- 
stone, the English statesman, denounced the 
** unspeakable Turk" and demanded that England 
cease to support such barbarians. He urged that 
they be ''expelled bag and baggage" from Europe. 

Presently Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria, all 
Slav states — their people being related to the Rus- 
SLAVS WAR ON siaus — declared war on Turkey. 
TURKS, 1876 They were supported by Russia, who 
wished to aid her fellow Slavs. It was not long 
before the Russians were again marching on Con- 
stantinople. The Sultan begged for peace and the 
treaty of San Stefano was made between Russia and 
Turkey in 1878. It gave complete independence to 
Serbia, Montenegro and Roumania with larger boun- 
daries. Bulgaria was made a self-governing state 
with wide frontiers tributary only to the Sultan. 
Only a broken strip across the peninsula was left 
to Turkey and she was almost edged out of Europe. 

But to the shame and selfishness of the other 
powers, they again intervened and demanded a 
change in the treaty. They said the Eastern ques- 
tion could not be settled by one nation, for it affected 
them all, and they all demanded a voice in the settle- 
ment. England feared Russia was coming uncom- 



THE STOEY OF THE BALKAN COUNTEIES 23 

fortably close to the Straits at Constantinople as she 
thought the Balkan states would become mere tools 
of Eussia. Austria also protested loudly, for she 
wished a part of the spoils of Turkey for herself, and 
Germany was glad to help her get her share. Russia 
objected to allowing those who had not fought, to 
decide the outcome of her victory. However, she 
could not face all these nations in arms, so she agreed 
to a meeting which was called the Congress of 
Berlin (1878). 

Bismarck was at the Congress of Berlin and sided 
with Austria, giving her claim to the provinces of 
THE CONGRESS Bosuia and Herzegovina which, being 
OF BERLIN peopled with Slavs, should have gone 

to Serbia. England took the island of Cyprus and 
Bulgaria's boundaries were reduced and the land 
given back to Turkey. The result was that though 
Turkey's territory was much reduced, it was not 
so much cut off as in the treaty of San Stefano. 
Turkey's population was, however, reduced from 
17 millions to 6 millions and she would have been put 
off the peninsula by Russia except for the selfish 
jealousy concerning the Straits of the Dardanelles. 
And so more bloody wars must follow. 

Following up the Congress of Berlin, Austro- 
Hungary in 1908 made Bosnia and Herzegovina a 
real part of her Empire. Serbia was much embit- 
tered by this, as she thought these Slav provinces 
were hers by right and they would have given her 
an outlet to the Adriatic Sea for her trade. Now 
she was hemmed in on all sides and her war spirit 
again flamed up. 

For many, many years the Serbians had longed 
to unite Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Monte- 
negro, states which were all peopled by the Slav race. 



2.4 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE 

They dreamed of restoring the old Serbian Empire 
of the Middle Ages with an outlet on the Adriatic 
Sea. Serbia, alone, of all the states of Europe, 
except Switzerland, could not reach the sea to market 
her products. 

In 1912 there was a general war among the Balkan 
states. At first they defeated Turkey and were 
BALKAN about to take nearly all her land when they 
WAES fell to quarreling over who should have it 
and began fighting among themselves. Bulgaria 
finally got the worst of the bargain. Austria did not 
take part, but when peace was made she again 
prevented Serbia from getting an outlet to the 
Adriatic. 

Just at this time (1913) Austria secretly informed 
her ally, Italy, that she, Austria, was prepared to 
make war on Serbia. She asked Italy to join her 
according to their treaty of alliance. But Italy 
replied that Austria was about to make war on 
Serbia without any excuse. It would not be a war 
of defense on Austria's part. According to the 
terms of the alliance, Italy was to aid only in defen- 
sive warfare. So Italy refused to join Austria 
against Serbia in 1913. For some reason Austria 
gave up her plan, but we know from this that she was 
only waiting for the slightest excuse to attack Ser- 
bia. This brings us to the fateful year of 1914 with 
the Balkan question still unsettled. 



CHAPTER IV 
EUROPE TAKES FIRE 

The spark that set all Europe aflame was lighted 
June 28, 1914. On this day an assassin slew Arch- 
duke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian 
throne, together with his wife, as they were riding in 
their carriage in the streets of Sarajevo, the capital 
of Bosnia. ^ The men who threw the bomb that caused 
the death of this royal couple were Austrian subjects 
and natives of Bosnia ; however, they were Slavs by 
race and Austria declared that there was a society 
of Serbians who had arranged this dreadful crime 
and that they were trying to destroy the Austrian 
Empire by killing the heir to the throne. 

We remember that some years before (1908) 
Austria had forcibly taken over Bosnia and annexed 
it to her Empire and this assassination of the Crown 
Prince was supposed to be a mad protest against the 
annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But Austria 
claimed that Serbia was responsible for the trouble, 
although it was committed by Austrian subjects on 
Austrian territory. All the world knew that the 
slaying of the heir to the Austrian throne was a 
crime that would lead to serious consequences and 
waited with bated breath for the outcome. 

Strange to say, Austria for a whole month said 
almost nothing about the atfair, but all the time she 
AUSTRIA'S was secretly planning to bring on war 
ULTIMATUM and doubtless was being advised by 
Germany, her ally. Suddenly, on July 23, 1914, she 



26 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

sent an ultimatum to Serbia demanding a reply 
within forty-eight hours. She gave Serbia no time 
to investigate the matter and find out the truth about 
the secret organization or the reason for the crime. 
The tones of Austria's demand were haughty and 
insulting, and it was plain that she had made up her 
mind to fight. 

All the governments of Europe were at once 
informed what was going on. Austria's demands of 
Serbia were very humiliating, but England, Russia, 
and France, realizing that Austria had suffered a 
wrong, urged Serbia to comply if she could. They 
also asked Austria for more time to talk matters 
over. This she refused, and it was evident that she 
was bent on war. On July 25, Serbia answered and 
accepted all the eleven demands made by Austria 
except one. She refused to allow Austrian agents 
to have a hand in the investigation of the society 
in Serbia. Serbia said that she would report to the 
Austrian agents the progress of her own efforts 
to suppress this society. She said that if Austria 
was not satisfied with this, she would submit the 
whole matter to the Hague Peace Court or to any 
other tribunal which might be made up by the powers 
of Europe. This was surely a most reasonable reply 
to the haughty demands of Austro-Hungary. 

But the Austrian minister at Belgrade had hardly 
read the reply before he asked for his passports, 
broke off relations with Serbia, and left for Vienna. 
His conduct plainly showed that he had had his 
instructions to do this, no matter what the Serbians 
were willing to promise, unless it complied with 
all their demands to the letter. And so the world 
was set on fire. 

Immediately the wires buzzed with passing com- 



EUROPE TAKES FIRE 27 

munications all over Europe. Statesmen and rulers 
ATTEMPTS were conferring in every capital and 
FOR PEACE event followed event very rapidly. 
England proposed to Germany that the points at 
issue between Austria and Serbia should be taken 
up at a conference among Italy, France, Germany, 
and Great Britain. Germany said ''No" and re- 
fused to interfere, though the world knew that she 
could have put a stop to the war at once if she had 
so desired. It was plain that she was supporting 
Austria and was determined to prevent a peaceful 
settlement of the trouble. 

As the Serbians are mainly Slavs, Eussia would 
not see these people imposed upon by a greater 
power like Austria. Eussia sought to talk matters 
over at Vienna in order to arrange a peaceful settle- 
ment, but the Austrian government refused to dis- 
cuss her ultimatum to Serbia. All things went to 
prove that Austria and Germany were determined 
to have war. 

Both Serbia and Austria mobilized their armies. 
War was declared by Austria on Serbia on July 28, 
and the fighting began at once. Eussia also pro- 
ceeded to mobilize five army corps, about 250,000 
men, because she did not want to see Serbia over- 
whelmed. Germany mobilized her fleet on the same 
day. The day after Austria's declaration of war, 
Eussia made another attempt to persuade her to 
negotiate and settle the matter peaceably. Austria 
refused. The day following, the word reached Pet- 
rograd, the capital of Eussia, that the Germans 
were secretly mobilizing. 

Germany now demanded that Eussia cease mobil- 
izing within twenty-four hours, but Eussia thought 
it very plain that Germany and Austria were bent 



28 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAR 

on war, since they had refused every reasonable 
offer to make peace, so she continued to collect her 
armies. France also began to mobilize her armies 
to aid her ally, Russia. 

England was now alarmed, as was every other 
nation in Europe. She undertook to keep the matter 
ENGLAND f rom spreading to the other nations. She 
ALARMED asked France and Germany if they would 
respect the neutrality of Belgium. France said she 
would. Germany made no reply. All the nations 
were bound by treaty to respect the rights of 
Belgium, but the Germans thought they were pow- 
erful enough to disregard their treaty and would 
not promise that they would not trample upon this 
country if it were to their best advantage to do so. 
When England insisted on a reply from Germany 
she said that Great Britain was foolish to put so 
much stress on the mere words of a treaty which 
was only a "scrap of paper." 

On the first day of August Germany declared war 
on Russia. On the third day of August German 
soldiers crossed the French boundary and Germany 
demanded of Belgium that German armies be per- 
mitted to cross her territory into France. Belgium 
refused, saying that she wished to remain neutral 
and it would not be fair to France or to Germany to 
allow armies from either country to pass through 
her land. At once Germany declared war on France 
and Belgium, and German troops crossed the Belgian 
frontier. 

Now England held her promise sacred that Bel- 
gium should be protected in case of war. She said 
she could never again hold up her head among the 
nations if she did not take part in Belgium's behalf. 
It was a question of her national honor and her word 



EUEOPE TAKES FIRE 29 

before the world. She said that the world would 
never again have confidence in the word of England 
if she failed to protect her peaceful neighbor. So 
England declared war on Germany on August 4, 
1914. 

The Kaiser seemed much surprised to think that 
England would fight to keep a treaty. His promise 
had meant nothing. In fact, it is evident that Ger- 
many had planned for years to violate the neutrality 
of Belgium. German railways everywhere led up 
to the Belgian borders, and it is plain that they were 
built to be used in case of war. They were all 
double-tracked with a view to an overwhelming 
attack on this poor little country. The textbooks of 
war written by war lords in Germany contain many 
statements to the effect that if that country were 
to go to war with France, they would march through 
Belgium regardless of their promises. 

The German army moved on Belgian territory 
and attacked the fortress of Liege on August 4, 
GERMAN 1914. The plan was to seize Liege as the 
PLANS gateway into Belgium and to rush the 
German armies across King Albert's countrj^ into 
France and get there before the French had time 
to prepare for them. The Kaiser's whole scheme 
was based upon this quick passage through Belgium. 
He expected to reach Paris before France and Eng- 
land could get their armies ready for defense. 
Germany thought she could sweep the forts of Bel- 
gium from her path and move along without delay, 
but there were some surprises in store for her. 

In fact, Germany expected to make the war a 
short conflict. She would strike France as she had 
in 1870, so suddenly as to crush her and then, count- 
ing upon Eussia to be very slow, would turn upon 



30 STOEY OF THE WOELB WAE 

that country and make an end of her. She knew that 
the frontier between France and Germany was well 
fortified on the French side. As everything de- 
pended on speed, the troops must proceed through 
the neutral Duchy of Luxemburg and through 
Belgium. 



CHAPTER V 

HOW EUROPE HAD PREPARED FOR THIS 

WAR 

With all the attempts to keep peace, Europe has 
known for many years that war would again appear, 
and all the nations were more or less prepared, 
though none so well as Germany. We remember 
that when war broke out between France and Ger- 
many in 1870 the Germans threw an immense army 
to the border so quickly that they found the French 
utterly unready. Because of this ability to move so 
rapidly with a large force, the Germans reached 
Paris in six months and the war was soon over. 

But this time Germany was even better prepared. 
The German army was well supplied with draft 
RAiLHOAD animals, tractors and auto-trucks, 
ADVANTAGES which enabled them to move with 
speed. For many years Germany and Austria have 
been busy building strategic railways for use in war. 
Besides the many double-tracked roads to the Bel- 
gian frontier, Germany had seventeen lines of rail- 
way leading to the Russian borders, which would 
enable her to send to that front more than five hun- 
dred troop trains each day. So that in a few days 
after the declaration of war the German armies, 
if desired, might all be upon the borders of Russia. 
To Germany's seventeen lines, Russia had only five 
railroads to this frontier. 

Austria had eight lines running to the Russian 
border and could throw a million men on the Rus- 



32 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE 

sian frontier in a very few days, running 260 trains 
every twenty-four hours. To the Austrian frontier 
Eussia had only four lines. These roads were built 
not only to carry the armies to the enemy's terri- 
tory, but with them Germany and Austria could 
furnish their armies with food and supplies in great 
quantities. 

Then, too, Germany and Austria occupied the 
center of the fighting area and could move their 
armies back and forth at will from one frontier to 
another wherever there was most need of them. 
Thus, the Central Powers, being able to shift their 
soldiers from one battle front to another, made one 
German soldier equal to two of the Allied soldiers, 
unless the Allies could arrange to strike both sides 
of Germany at the same time. 

All the nations of Europe kept large standing 
armies, the cost of which loaded them down with 
STANDING AEMiES heavy taxes. All nations, too, 
AND FLEETS exccpt England, had required 

universal military training. It takes time to train 
a man to become a good soldier. So these nations 
required all their young men to spend a few years 
in army training during times of peace so that when 
war came, soldiers in large numbers would be ready. 
Universal military training is a great burden, but 
it was the only safeguard against Germany's speed 
in attack. 

England, surrounded as she is by water, was 
relying on her fleet. She had only a small standing 
army and her citizens had no army training. Upon 
her navy England had lavished millions to keep 
well ahead of all other nations, and she believed 
she could control the sea in any war that might 



HOW EUEOPE HAD PEEPAEED FOE THIS WAE 33 

come. Germany had a fine navy, but it was no 
match for that of England. 

All frontiers of the continental nations were forti- 
fied with mammoth forts of steel and concrete built, 
as it was thought, strong enough to defy capture. 
Military men in each country worked at secret plans 
and weapons with which to surprise their enemies 
when the storm broke. Military spies were sent 
nosing about other nations to discover and report 
the strength and weakness of their neighbors. 
Secret treaties were made, and many other activities 
existed, of which civilized mankind ought to be 
ashamed. In nearly all these matters Germany took 
the lead, because her leaders for years have been 
war-mad, and at the same time thorough and scien- 
tific about whatever they attempted. She had built 
up great ammunition and gun factories, each with 
its war secrets. 

The weakest spot in the Austrian defense was 
that almost half of her population are Slavs. Many 
of them disliked the Austrians and were opposed 
to her government. They preferred Russia instead, 
the home of their people. 

We all believe now that Germany could have 
stopped this war if she had chosen to do so, but 
GERMANY we have many reasons for thinking that 
EEADY siie welcomed the occasion to extend her 
power. Why do we believe this 1 In the first place, 
the deepening of the great Kiel Canal leading from 
the Baltic Sea to the North Sea was completed just 
a month before the war opened. This enabled the 
German war fleet to pass directly back and forth 
between these waters without going through the 
winding and more or less dangerous route around 



34 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

Denmark. The Canal gives Germany a great advan- 
tage both with regard to England and Russia. 

The Kaiser thought that England was on the 
verge of civil war at home and that she would not 
enter the war at this time. German war leaders 
also quoted some things that had been said in the 
French Senate which they thought indicated that 
France was poorly prepared for war. They real- 
ized, too, that Russia was getting stronger every 
day. Germany thought, should she wait another 
three years, that she would lose the advantage that 
she had in 1914 because of the great increase in the 
Russian armament and the growth of her strategic 
railways. 

So Germany decided it was now or never for her 
to take the first place among the nations of Europe. 
SPEED IN We knew that Germany was armed to 
MOBILIZING the teeth with all her men trained, but 
the system which she had worked out, of getting 
her men quickly into the ranks fairly took our 
breath away. When a soldier was ordered out, he 
reported at once to the storehouse, where his equip- 
ment was kept. He gave his name to a clerk and 
was given a bundle of clothing which contained two 
complete uniforms, two coats, two pairs of trousers, 
two pairs of leggings and two pairs of marching 
shoes, one hat, two suits of underclothes, four pairs 
of socks, a comfort kit, a blanket, robe and other 
necesary things. These articles of clothing were 
all the correct size, for they had been selected, tried 
on and put away for this soldier with his name on 
the tag and bundle many months before. The 
bundle also contained a brass tag bearing his official 
number, which he was to wear next to his body, 
suspended from his neck by a cord. 



HOW EUEOPE HAD PREPARED FOR THIS WAR 35 

With this bundle of clothing he at once repaired 
to a dressing room, put on his uniform and made 
up his field roll with his other articles. Then he 
tied up his civilian clothing and handed it to the 
clerk to put away for him. Next the man went to 
the armory, which was either in the same building 
where his outfit was kept, or near by. Here he drew 
his rifle, belt, and ammunition. He was now ready 
to march with his company or regiment, or to go 
on board a troop train. The regiments in the cities 
were ready to march in from four to six hours. The 
country districts needed only from twelve to twenty- 
four hours to mobilize. 

Thus we see that Germany had a complete field 
outfit ready for every able-bodied man, with his 
name on it, and every man knew just where to go 
to get his outfit in the least possible time after the 
war call came. Within twenty-four hours after war 
loomed up, Germany had two million men on the 
way to her frontiers. As soon as the mobilization 
began, soldiers were on the streets marching to 
war. There were regiments of infantry, troops of 
cavalry, batteries of artillery and long lines of for- 
age, ammunition and hospital wagons. These sol- 
diers of Germany were greeted with loud cheers 
from every quarter. Both the soldiers and the 
bystanders joined in singing: ''Die Wacht am 
Rhine," ''Deutschland uber Alles," "Hoch der 
Kaiser" and one might hear the cry ''Nach Paris" 
and *'Nach Petersburg." 

This mobilization of the German army was a won- 
derful feat. At the end of six days, we are told, 
there were three million men along the French and 
Belgian borders and a smaller number along the 
Russian frontier. In short, the men were gathered 



36 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE 

and moved to tlie front in an orderly manner, and 
with such remarkable precision as denoted long and 
careful preparation for just this emergency. All 
the railroad trains of the German Empire were used 
to move the army. There were no passenger trains 
running during this week of mobilization. It was 
this marvelous speed upon which the Kaiser was 
counting to get his forces to Paris before the French 
could mobilize their army for defense. 

Germany also had some new and murderous 
weapons upon which she was counting to aid in her 
SECRET charge. For some time after the war of 
BIG GUNS 1870 it was thought that artillery fire in 
itself was enough to reduce a fort and that infantry 
attacks were no longer necessary. But armored 
concrete forts were later introduced. This changed 
the tactics which were for so long believed to be 
effective. It was argued that although the guns of 
a fort might be silenced by the attacking artillery, 
it was hardly likely that the armor of the forts 
could be destroyed, and it was probable that in most 
instances the silenced guns could be repaired and 
replaced by the time the attacking force could move 
their guns close enough to shorten the range. The 
attacking force was necessarily put at a great 
disadvantage. 

Germany, wishing to reduce the forts quickly, set 
about making bigger guns with longer range, so 
that her troops could stand off many miles and 
destroy forts without the guns of the fort being able 
to reach hers in reply. Her big mortars fire shells 
161/4 inches in diameter. They were made in the 
Krupp gun factory and the world knew nothing 
about them. This gun is so heavy that it requires 
a concrete foundation which it takes several days 



HOW EUEOPE HAD PREPARED FOR THIS WAR 37 

to prepare. The shells weigh nearly a ton and can 
hit a fort 22 miles away. A few shots from this 
powerful gun will destroy any fort made of steel 
and concrete. Other nations did not know of this 
weapon. 

Another great gun, a field howitzer of the Ger- 
mans, fires shells 11 inches in diameter. It has as 
part of its equipment two tractors for moving it 
with an advancing army. One of the tractors pulls 
the gun itself, which weighs about twenty-five tons. 
It is mounted for movement on a special carriage. 
The other tractor pulls the gun carriage, which 
weighs slightly less than the gun. The ammunition 
is carried separately and as each shell weighs in the 
neighborhood of 800 pounds, it creates a big prob- 
lem of transport in itself. The wheels of this outfit 
are of the tread-rail type. They move well over 
soft ground and the whole can be moved over good 
roads with remarkable speed. The range of the gun 
is about six miles. The shells burst with a deadly 
effect, the flying fragments scattering over a radius 
of fifty feet. The poisonous gases which are gen- 
erated reach to a distance of thirty to forty feet 
more. The effect of one of these shells therefore 
covers an area about 150 feet across. The gases 
are not as deadly in the open as in the passages 
of the fort. 

The German war lords knew that their guns could 
easily outrange those of the forts which they were 
planning to reduce. There were in the forts many 
6-inch and 9-inch guns which could not shoot nearly 
as far as the bigger German guns. The Germans 
thought all they would have to do was to batter 
the enemy's forts into a shapeless mass with their 
big guns, which were easily directed by airplanes 



38 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

flying over the heads of the defenders, and then, 
by an overwhelming infantry assault, capture the 
tangled pile of masonry and steel. 

The French also had one surprise for the world. 
They brought out a secret gun known as the 
THE FRENCH ' ' sevcnty-fivc. ' ' It fires a three- 

"SEVENTY-nvES" [nch shell and is in important 
respects the finest gun of its size in the war. The 
French army was well equipped with this excellent 
weapon, but neither they nor the English had a 
sufficient variety of big guns. The German army 
was well supplied with cannon of all sizes, and 
during the first years of the war this gave them a 
big advantage in artillery warfare. It was not until 
1916 that the Allies were able to match the enemy 
gun for gun, 



CHAPTER VI , 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1914— BELGIUM 
CONQUERED 

Liege was the fortified Belgian city guarding the 
passage to the Meuse Eiver. The Germans attacked 
it on August 4, 1914, two days after war was 
declared. They had three army corps, or about 
120,000 men. It was defended by the gallant Gen- 
eral Leman with 40,000 Belgians. Liege was pro- 
tected by six major and six minor forts. The Bel- 
gians had two regiments occupying positions assist- 
ing the forts. They defended Liege with magnifi- 
cent courage. For three days the German army 
tried to storm the forts, but in vain. They attacked 
in solid ranks but the Belgian machine guns mowed 
them down like grain. The world was staggered 
by the terrible slaughter. 

The Germans then attacked the regiments in the 
field and gradually drove them back by massed 
attacks until the Germans were enabled to approach 
the city. On August 6tli they silenced one of the 
forts and entered Liege on August 7th, but several 
of the forts still held until Sunday, August 9th, 
when they were completely surrounded. For six 
days more General Leman maintained his defense 
until the last fort under his command had been 
reduced to a heap of ruins and he, himself, was 
suffocated by gas from the exploding shells and 
taken prisoner. The Germans had at last brought 
up their big mortars and with a few shots smashed 



40 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAB 

every fort. They were so impressed with. Leman's 
great courage that they allowed him to retain his 
sword. 

In the meantime France was counting on the forts 
of Belgium to hold the Germans back until her 
DELAY armies were ready for the field. The 

SAVES PARIS brave little Belgian army had held out 
long enough to delay the German hosts until Eng- 
land could land her first body of troops in France. 
This delay of the German hosts also gave France 
a chance to marshall her armies. On August 18, 
1914, the British had landed 120,000 men in France 
and they were soon on their way to Belgium to meet 
the Germans. 

After the fall of Liege, German troops swept 
through northern Belgium. They put forth their 
cavalry as a screen for the main armies and 
pushed them rapidly across northeastern Belgium. 
Although they met stubborn resistance at many 
places, they were so strong in numbers and so well- 
trained that, with their matchless guns, they over- 
came all opposition. They occupied Louvain and 
then marched unopposed into Brussels, the capital 
of Belgium. The Belgian army retired to Antwerp. 
The Allies were counting on the forts of Namur 
to check the Germans again as they had been 
delayed at Liege. But Namur fell with surprising 
haste, for Germany now kept her big guns near 
the front of her marching hosts and they so out- 
distanced all guns in the forts that there was little 
use to oppose them. The walls of the great for- 
tresses were soon pounded to pieces. 

When Namur fell, on August 22, Belgium was 
virtually conquered except for a strip of the west 
coast and the city of Antwerp. A few weeks later 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1914— BELGIUM CONQUEEED 41 

the forts of Antwerp were also destroyed by the 
huge guns of the enemy. On the day following the 
fall of Namur the French were beaten at Charleroi 
and the British were compelled to retire with them. 
The mammoth German army now made an attempt 
to encircle the Anglo-French army and destroy it. 
The long line of Germans was swinging with Verdun 
as a pivot. General von Kluck commanded the west 
wing of the German line. But the flanking or cir- 
cling scheme of Von Kluck failed, because each time 
the English saved themselves by a retreat. At 
length the Germans entered the city of Lille, in 
France, for the British and French were outnum- 
bered and had again fallen back. These were dark 
days for the French. 

The Germans were watching closely for a chance 
to outflank or encircle them or else to crash through 
BRITISH COURAGE and destroy them. No army can 
SAVES THE LINE stand wlieu the line is broken. 
Soon the Germans thought they saw their chance. 
They hurled 200,000 men against the British end 
of the battle line and for six days the fate of the 
Allies hung in the balance. If the enemy should 
succeed in breaking through the line, the Allied 
armies would be destroyed. The crisis was reached 
on August 26th, when the British met the full force 
of the German assault. Two British corps met five 
German corps with supreme courage and worsted 
them. This gave the English an opportunity to 
retreat again in good order to St. Quentin. The 
failure of the French to send the aid the British had 
asked for almost resulted in a disaster that would 
have brought France to her knees. If the British 
had not checked the Germans here, there would have 
been no saving Paris. 



42 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

The Germans kept on trying to outflank the 
Anglo-French army, that is, to push around its 
wing, roll it back, and gradually destroy it. They 
next struck the French and English at St. Quentin 
and again the Germans were checked and the Allies 
fell back. The enemy was now within sixty miles 
of Paris and the second line of French defenses 
about that city had been taken. 

By September the left wing of the Anglo-French 
army had fallen back under the guns of the Paris 
forts. The Germans had thus far failed to encircle 
the Allies or to break through their lines. Now the 
Allies decided that they must make a stand with the 
Paris forts on one end of their 180-mile battle front 
and the Verdun fortress on the other. General 
Joffre, the leader of the French, thought that his 
supreme moment had arrived. He had yielded all 
of northern France to the enemy, but now he was 
ready to resist with all his might. 

The Germans decided that before they tried to 
take Paris they would make another attempt to 
BATTLE OF break through the Allied line and then 
THE MARNE take the Anglo-French army one sec- 
tion at a time. They attacked the Allied forces at 
their center on the Marne Eiver to divide it into two 
sections. They wished to roll back one section on 
Paris and the other on Verdun. 

It was General von Kluck who had pursued the 
British to the south but had failed to get around 
their left or west flank. Now he was compelled to 
draw in and cross in front of Paris to help break 
the center. As he moved in front of the city, Joffre 
struck at his flank with the British army aiding a 
force of his own. Joffre had gathered together 
all the automobiles and trucks of Paris and, using 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1914— BELGIUM CONQUERED 43 

the splendid wagon roads of France, had moved 
a large army with surprising rapidity. This attack 
on the flank surprised Von Kluck and he narrowly 
escaped capture. By hard fighting and yielding 
ground Von Kluck saved his army, and by Sep- 
tember 10th he was retreating toward the Aisne 
River with all possible speed. The rest of the Ger- 
man army had to join him in the retreat. They con- 
tinued to run until they reached the second line of 
the French defenses north of the Aisne. Here the 
Germans halted and entrenched themselves and the 
Allies failed to dislodge them. By September 18th, 
the Allied attacks ceased and the final stage of the 
first great German campaign was over. 

Neither the Germans nor the Allies have given 
out their losses in the Battle of the Marne, but there 
were two million men fighting with all the modern 
arms, and we may be sure the loss of life would be 
beyond our comprehension. The Germans had con- 
quered nearly all of Belgium and a large part of 
northern France, but they had failed in their two 
great objects, which were to smash the Anglo-French 
army and to capture Paris. They had in their con- 
trol, however, the factories and the coal and iron 
mines of Belgium and France, and this supply of 
coal and iron has helped Germany tremendously. 
Without them France has been greatly crippled, for 
all the coal for her industries and munitions plants 
has had to be shipped from England and protected 
from submarines in the shipment. Coal has already 
sold in Paris for sixty dollars a ton. 

After their defeat at the Marne the Germans tried 
to redeem themselves by breaking through the line 
BREAKING THE LINE on the Yser in Belgium in 
AT YSER AND YPRES Qctobcr, 1914. Their object 



44 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE 

was to capture the French port of Calais. The 
Yser Eiver rises in France and flows north and west 
through the southwest corner of Belgium. Along 
the Yser were stationed the remnant of the brave 
little army of the Belgians. The Germans succeeded 
in crossing the Yser and entered the city of Nieu- 
port, but they suffered heavy losses. The brave 
Belgians cut their dikes and flooded the hosts of 
the enemy out. British warships came to the aid 
of the Belgians and bombarded some of the German 
positions. At the close of the month the Germans 
were forced back across the Yser, where they have 
been held ever since. 

The Germans again tried to break through the line 
at Ypres in Belgium. The British held the Allied 
line here with about 150,000 men. The Germans 
attacked the British with forces at least three times 
the number of the defenders. The British were 
driven back slowly until the enemy's guns began 
to reach Ypres. The city began to crumble under 
the German shells, but the British line held. It 
was re-enforced to some extent by the French and 
the fighting went on. At last the Emperor appeared 
on the scene and sent in his crack Prussian guards 
to give the final crushing blow to what he had called 
'Hhe contemptible little army of England." But 
his troops were so badly beaten that he was com- 
pelled to abandon his effort to reach Calais. The 
German losses were said to have been about 150,000 
men in this first battle of Ypres. 

While the Germans were sweeping victoriously 
through Belgium and France the Russians under- 
THE EASTERN took to give somo help by striking at 
FRONT Prussia. This they thought would 

force Germany to shift some of her troops from 



THE CAMPAIGN OP 1914— BELGIUM CONQUERED 45 

the front before Paris, and in this way Russians 
might help to save that city. So the Russians 
invaded Prussia and were met by General von Hin- 
denburg in the Battle of Tannenberg. This was 
one of the important battles of the early part of the 
war. The Russians sutfered a great defeat. They 
lost 80,000 men in killed and wounded and prisoners, 
we are told, and were forced to retreat to their forti- 
fied line on the Russian border. But they did suc- 
ceed in their plan of forcing the Germans to transfer 
many of their troops from the French front just 
before the Battle of the Marne and undoubtedly 
helped in this way to win the Battle of the Marne 
and to save Paris. 

The great fortress of Lodz was the *' Verdun" of 
the Russian line, about 50 miles west of Warsaw. 
THE FALL That fortrcss had been built some ten 
OF LODZ years before, with money which Russia 
had borrowed from France. There were twenty-six 
forts in a semi-circle facing Prussia. In the course 
of the Russian retreat before the German army they 
were driven back toward the fortress of Lodz by 
the Germans who were attacking on both flanks. 
This battle began with all the signs of a great Ger- 
man victory. In fact, Berlin had already begun to 
celebrate the destruction of the Czar's army. 

Suddenly great masses of Russian troops hurried 
from "Warsaw and swept ^own upon the Germans 
and caught them in the rear. This turned the tables 
so completely that the Russians surrounded the 
German army. But with great bravery the forces 
of Hindenberg cut their way through and freed 
themselves from the trap. Re-enforcements came to 
their aid from the western front, and although they 
suffered great losses, they finally escaped, except 



46 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAR 

one army corps of 40,000 men, which the Russians 
captured. 

After receiving more troops from the west front 
the Germans attacked Lodz in earnest. They 
approached within 13 miles, where they planted one 
of their huge mortars on concrete. They knew 
exactly how much ammunition was stored in each 
Eussian fort, for their spies had been everywhere. 
They picked out the one containing the most explo- 
sives and trained the gun on it. They fired four 
shots, each of which went astray, digging great 
holes in the earth where it landed. The fifth struck 
the center of the fortifications, causing a tremendous 
explosion of all the ammunition in the firing pits. 
This threw huge chunks of concrete out into the 
field as if they were paper, and overturned the great 
guns of the fort. One hit was enough. The Rus- 
sians gave up Lodz to their enemy and fell back 
farther into Russian Poland. 

Perhaps the most brilliant story of the year of 
1914 tells how Serbia fought the Austrian forces 
SERBIAN and drove them from her territory. The 
FRONT warfare between Austria and Serbia had 
been bitterly waged for two months, but at the begin- 
ning of October the Austrians got the advantage. 
With a re-enforced army and some German aid 
they crossed the Drina River and moved forward 
toward Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, from two 
directions. Belgrade was caught on the flank and 
rear, and the garrison was forced to evacuate and 
retreat. The Austrians were about ready to take 
the railroad leading from Belgrade to Constanti- 
nople, and the Serbians were in despair. 

Then occurred one of the most stirring and dra- 
matic events of the entire war, and one that will be 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1914— BELGIUM CONQUERED 47 

told for all time to come. On December 9, 1914, 
when the broken forces of the Serbians were giving 
way before the enemy, there rode upon the field of 
battle the erect and aged figure of King Peter of 
Serbia. This white-haired monarch rallied his dis- 
couraged troops, and himself led them against the 
enemy. They pushed forward against the Austrians 
BO suddenly that they astonished them, routed, and 
drove them back from Belgrade. Then they chased 
them farther back across the Drina, and even across 
the Danube, and freed the soil of Serbia, for the time 
being, from her foes. Serbia remained free of the 
enemy until October, 1915, when Von Mackensen 
made his drive. 



CHAPTER VII 
ENGLAND AND HER FLEET 

Not long after the war broke out the colonies of 
the British Empire began to show most surprising 
loyalty to their mother country and prepared to 
enlist their sons in the fight for humanity. To the 
field of battle Canada sent her most splendid young 
men. They crossed the sea by hundreds of thou- 
sands to enter the trenches in Belgium. The young 
men of Canada wanted to go because they believed 
the issue was a question of right against wrong, 
and they were eager to get to the front and offer 
their services and even their lives. Up to August, 
1917, we are told, Canada sent 450,000 soldiers to 
the trenches of France. 

Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are all 
self-governing joarts of the great British Empire. 
They were in no way forced to come to the aid of 
England, but with high purpose they all sent money 
and supplies and thousands of their sons to aid the 
mother country. Germany could not understand 
this loyalty. She thought England's empire, espe- 
cially South Africa, which was largely Dutch, would 
refuse to aid England. But again the German war 
lords were surprised. They could not see that such 
conduct as tearing up a treaty and calling a sacred 
promise *'a mere scrap of paper '^ and the tramp- 
ling upon the rights of Belgium and Serbia was 
regarded by fair-minded men, the world over, as an 
outrage. 



ENGLAND AND HER FLEET 49 

With her great fleet England soon cleared the seas 
of German shipping. She put an end to German 
ENGLAND'S trade with other countries and forced 
NAVY SERVICE the Kaiser's battle fleet to remain in 
home waters under the protection of mines and 
German forts. England soon had all German ports 
of the North Sea blockaded. A few daring German 
commerce raiders went forth to sea through the 
British blockade, and German submarines inflicted 
considerable damage upon the ships of the Allies 
and neutral merchant ships, but Germany could not 
break the English blockade which threatened in time 
to starve her out. 

In August, 1914, a British squadron sent three 
light German cruisers and two or three destroyers 
to the bottom of the North Sea. A month later a 
German submarine sank three British cruisers in 
the same waters, with the loss of 1,000 English sea- 
men. The next naval battle was off the coast of Chile 
in November, 1914, when three German cruisers 
sank two British cruisers and damaged two others. 
In December, 1914, a British squadron, commanded 
by Admiral Sturdee, evened up the score. "With a 
stronger fleet he came upon five German warships 
near the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. 
After a five hours ' battle he sent to the bottom three 
German warships and the other two fled. Sturdee 
followed them and sank one more ship on the same 
day. The other fast cruiser escaped, but was later 
overtaken and destroyed. 

The greatest naval battle of history was fought in 
the North Sea, May 31, 1916, between the main fleets 
BATTLE OP of the British and German navies. We 
JUTLAND do not know the full details as to the 
ships engaged or the losses, but there were about 



50 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAE 

eighty heavy ships besides many smaller craft in 
the fight. Twenty-five ships were said to have been 
sunk and nearly 10,000 sailors were killed. Night 
put an end to the fighting and the German fleet 
sailed for home. Both sides claimed the victory^ 
but the battle was not decisive. The British loss 
in men and ships was probably the greater, but 
they could afford heavy losses and still hold control 
of the sea. The German losses were so heavy that 
up to July, 1917, they had not sought another 
encounter with the British navy. 

Australia had sent out a navy of several cruisers, 
one of which was named the '' Sydney." This gave 
THE SYDNEY Valuable assistance to the Allies by 
AND EMDEN running down and destroying the 
noted German raider, the "Emden." The *'Emden" 
was a small cruiser of the Kaiser's navy that had 
been the terror of the Pacific and Indian oceans 
since the beginning of the war. She had sunk more 
than twenty vessels which, with their cargoes, were 
valued at more than twenty millions of dollars. Late 
in October, 1914, she appeared at Penang in the 
Straits of Malacca and performed a most daring 
feat. As a disguise she had rigged up a fourth 
smokestack and, flying the Japanese flag, she 
steamed into the harbor past the British forts and 
torpedoed and sank a Eussian cruiser and a French 
destroyer and escaped untouched. 

Scores of British and Japanese ships were scour- 
ing the seas for the ''Emden." On November 9, 
1914, the '^ Sydney" sighted her off Cocos Island in 
the Indian Ocean. The "Sydney" was the faster 
ship and soon overtook her enemy. The Germans 
fought bravely, but the *'Emden" was beached and 
burned. Of the 308 men aboard only thirty escaped 



ENGLAND AND HEE FLEET 51 

death. These, including Captain von Muller, were 
taken prisoners to Melbourne. Out of respect to 
their courage the English accorded them the honors 
of war and the captain and his officers were allowed 
to keep their swords. 

While the German cruisers did vast damage to 
British shipping the first year, still the commerce 
of the Allies was carried on without great inter- 
ruption under the protection of England's powerful 
fleet. On the other hand, the sea-going trade of the 
Central Powers of Germany, Austria and Turkey 
was virtually shut off, and their colonies were fast 
being taken. 

Now at the close of the year 1914, when the war 
was six months old, Germany was still facing three 
great nations whose military power was unshaken 
and whose armies were growing in numbers. Thus 
the wonderful preparedness of Germany had failed 
to bring her a speedy victory. France was saved at 
the Battle of the Marne. 

Before going on with the story of the fighting 
we wish to tell you some of the problems that the 
nations had to meet in this war. 



CHAPTER VIII 
NEW METHODS OF WAEFAEE 

Marshall Joffre of France is reported to have said 
that **all former experience in war may as well be 
thrown upon the scrap-heap" because the men of 
today must use new methods entirely. The war was 
not many days old before it was apparent to all 
that it would be fouglit in a far different manner 
from any former conflict. Once we thought an army 
of 100,000 men was a great host, but today millions 
of men are in the ranks. 

Guns, food, and ammunition for these great num- 
bers must be carried at great speed for long dis- 
tances by train and by motor trucks. All types of 
motor cars have been extensively used. They not 
only carry men and supplies, but officers use them 
for hurried trips and they are used by soldiers on 
patrol duty. Motor ambulances carry wounded men 
quickly and comfortably from the front to the field 
hospitals or to the base hospitals in the rear. The 
Eed Cross people find them invaluable for moving 
physicians, nurses, and medical supplies. 

But the most wonderful use of cars is that of the 
armored automobiles called the British *' tanks," 
which bear machine guns. They have a top and sides 
of armor plate and have wheels of the ''caterpillar" 
type, so they can move over very rough ground 
through fields and among the trenches of the enemy. 
All the while their machine guns are firing 800 bul- 
lets a minute. No wonder the Germans have feared 



NEW METHODS OF WARFAEE 53 

this frightful monster that plows into their midst, 
breaking through fortifications and sowing destruc- 
tion in its path. 

Portable wireless outfits are much used. They 
are carried on motorcycles, motor cars, and air- 
planes and set up in 90 seconds. They are used for 
sending messages over distances under thirty-five 
miles. For longer distances there are heavier 
outfits. 

We have learned that the old type fortifications of 
steel and concrete have been found to be worth very 
little. They must be built so long in advance that 
their location is soon known to the enemy and 
experiei^ce has proved that the more solid and com- 
pact the material used, the greater the havoc 
wrought by the high explosive shells. Loose earth 
has been found to give the best shelter for troops. 

''Digging in" is the new term. In one hour a 
man can dig a pit 3 feet square and 2 feet deep. 
TRENCH By banking the dirt in front of his pit he 
WARFARE can make a good cover from which to 
direct his fire. The object of "digging in" is to 
obtain shelter from the direct fire of the enemy, 
such as the projectiles of rifles, machine guns and 
shrapnel that spreads out flat when striking. How- 
itzers which throw a high curve shrapnel down at 
45 degrees make deeper trenches necessary for pro- 
tection. In four hours an overhead shelter of earth 
can be erected. But this is rarely attempted under 
fire. 

To give you some idea of a modern battle, we 
shall see in our mind's eye a half mile of open 
trenches lying between the opposing trenches of the 
two armies. Between is "no man's land." Sup- 
pose the Germans decide to push forward. A regi- 



54 STOKY OF THE WOBLD WAR 

ment jumps out of its trenches and charges. All 
the artillery and infantry of the Allies within range 
is at once concentrated upon them. The soldiers 
keep up their dash until perhaps half of them have 
fallen. Then the order comes to dig. They fall 
flat on their faces, unbuckle their shovels and dig 
for dear life. •, ..^ .. I^w j 

Now another regiment pushes forward to their 
right and their left and the artillery of the Allies is 
turned upon their new charge. What is left of the 
first regiment is hereby relieved of the hail of bul- 
lets and every minute they are improving their 
shelter. At dark come others with picks and shovels 
and barbed wire. They deepen and connect the 
trenches and with posts and rolls of barbed wire put 
up entanglements in front. Others, with wood cut 
the proper length, roof over the trenches and cover 
them with enough dirt to stop shrapnel and shell 
fragments from entering. Still others bring sacks 
of wet dirt mixed with cement, and steel loopholes, 
which are fitted between the bags of dirt. Then the 
landscape gardeners sod it over and arrange bushes 
to make all invisible. 

By daylight the next morning it will take the 
sharpest eyes to locate the new trenches. Even 
airplanes find it difficult to get exact ranges. To 
prevent the enemy from getting correct range the 
trenches are usually built in a zigzag line. The 
enemy will not risk his high explosive thousand- 
dollar shells on a wild chance of getting a fair hit at 
these trenches. 

It was the Russians who taught the world how to 
construct permanent trenches to house their men 
PERMANENT underground. In the early months of 
TRENCHES of the War barracks were found on the 



NEW METHODS OF WAEFAEE 55 

Russian front large enough to shelter from two to 
four hundred men underground. They were packed 
in rather tight, it is true, but they were protected 
from all but the heaviest shells of the enemy. On 
the roof was some 10 to 20 feet of earth, with the 
sod replaced in order to hide their location from the 
spying hawks of airplanes. The barracks were built 
in pairs, with a connecting tunnel. They used heavy 
logs or overhead timbering and sawed lumber for 
tbe sides. Sand bags were placed around the open- 
irgs or port holes. 

The Germans were quick to adopt the under- 
ground camp idea. And we soon found them on the 
western front among the abandoned mines, chalk 
cavern, and quarries. In one cave the Germans 
sheltered 3,000 men. They had a blower fan venti- 
lating system and electric lights in this cave. In 
some places telephones were installed. 

Barbed wire is of great use in modern fortifica- 
tions. A barbed wire entanglement may consist of 
from three to twenty parallel rows of posts with the 
wire woven **ev^y which way" among them. To 
these wires are sometimes tied a lot of empty tin 
cans which serve to sound an alarm if anyone should 
try to cut through the maze at night. No invention 
of man before has proven such a perfect defense as 
this tangle of humble barbed wire. 

The large guns used at the siege of Liege, Ant- 
werp, and Lodz, were one of the surprises of the 
NEW early months of the war. These siege 

WEAPONS guns were built by the Krupps. They 
use shells of tremendous destructive power at long 
range. The 42 centimeter (16.5-inch) mortar prob- 
ably has put an end forever to the building of forts 
of the old plan of steel and concrete, for they are 



56 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

now SO easily destroyed that they are not worth 
the money spent on them. The trenches hastily dug 
by the troops are far more effective in defense than 
the costly forts against these monster long range 
guns. 

More hideous than anything else are the gas shells 
that explode and suffocate the soldiers in the 
trenches. The Germans first used these deadly 
gases. They waited until the wind was blowing 
toward the enemy and then let loose great volumes 
of gases which are a little heavier than air. The 
wind carried them to the trenches and caves of the 
enemy and the Allied forces were overwhelmed. As 
soon as possible the British and French furnished 
their soldiers with masks to protect them from the 
deadly effect of the poisonous gases and adopted 
gas bombs in their own defense. 

Machines are also used to shoot liquid fire and 
boiling oil at the enemy. Hand grenades are thrown 
very effectively in trench fighting by all the armies. 
Men of science are using all their knowledge and 
skill to make still more murderous machines — any- 
thing that will more speedily kill and cripple the 
enemy. It was said before the war opened that men 
would never go to war again, for all these new 
devices would destroy an army in one engagement, 
but we have learned to combat even these diabolical 
contrivances, the only difference being that men are 
killed by the hundred thousand instead of by the 
thousand, as in previous wars. 

The two most important aids to modern warfare 
we have not yet discussed. They are the aircraft 
and the submarine. We shall treat of aircraft in 
the next chapter, 



CHAPTER IX 
WAR IN THE AIR 

Ever since we have learned to fly it has been 
known that aircraft would play an important part 
in war. Aside from its use to drop bombs and 
explosives on the enemy's works, the airplane has 
been used as a superscout. And, more than this, 
it has become one of the fighting units. It not only 
combats other aircraft, but attacks troops on the 
ground with its deadly machine guns. 

The element of surprise, which in all wars of the 
past has been a great factor in the winning of 
battles, has now been largely eliminated because 
of the airscouts. Today it is impossible to make 
an unexpected flanking movement unless the army 
attempting it can keep down all enemy flyers. It 
was news gleaned by the airscouts that saved the 
British army from annihilation in the early part 
of the war. Many times the troops on both sides 
have been saved by timely warnings from the sky. 

With the long range of modern artillery and the 
introduction of the indirect method of firing, big 
THE EYES OF guus are virtually blind without 

THE ABTiLLERY the direction of the aerial ob- 
server. The armies have used a kite balloon for 
observation. These are huge sausage-shaped bags 
floating high in the air at a height from 1,000 to 
5,000 feet. They are easily shot down by the enemy's 
infantry and are likely to be bombed by the enemy's 
airmen so that the main artillery must depend for 



58 STOEY OF THE ,WORLD WAK 

their direction upon tlie other types of aircraft. 

There are two other types of flyers used in war, 
the airplane and the airship, or Zeppelin. The fight- 
ing biplane or monoplane, in which the pilot ascends 
alone, bears only its own load and nothing more. 
Its motor is jDowerful and the body shaped to offer 
the least possible resistance to the air. With its 
engine roaring and a gale of wind blowing in the 
wake of its propeller, this machine will leap across 
the ground, spring into the air and climb at an 
amazing pace — a mile in seven minutes. It must 
be able to fly above an enemy plane so as to drive 
down upon him and thus fire a fatal shot. Its speed 
has brought it the nickname of '' bullet" or 
* ' chaser. ' ' A biplane with a IGO-horsepower engine 
has attained a speed of 130 miles an hour. Such a 
machine can loop the loop and perform other mar- 
velous feats. It requires great skill in handling, for 
in rising or descending it may swerve suddenly or 
overturn. It avoids gun fire by the sheer speed 
by which it moves. This ** chaser" type of biplane 
has proved to be a valuable scout. The German 
Fokker is the most famous machine of this class. 
The airplane cannot hover over one spot, neither 
can she fly at night except at some risk. If a motor 
fails and the scout has to descend he may crash into 
tree-tops or against roofs. 

Should a more careful and detailed observation 
be needed than could be given by these high speed 
WATCHING scouts, there is a slower flying biplane 
THE ENEMY or mouoplaue which will carry one or 
more passengers as well as a pilot. The scout takes 
with him an officer skilled in observation well 
equipped with glasses and maps. The officer devotes 
himself entirely to the land below while the pilot 



WAR IN THE AIR 59 

steers. The larger and slower planes are protected 
by an escort of ''chasers." 

The pilot, when in flight, is too busy a man to 
make maps. As he ascends, the first ten minutes 
or so are occupied in getting his height. He must 
see that all instruments are working properly and 
listen to his engine. Then his eyes must make a 
ceaseless round of the instruments— the aneroid, 
airspeed indicator, revolution indicator, oil gauge, 
petrol gauge, compass and watch. Only occasionally 
can he look over the side to see if he is'in his course. 
But with a man in the car, or two if possible— for 
two pairs of eyes are better than one— a machine 
flying for several hours over the enemy's lines can 
make a full and accurate survey. Some of these 
biplanes measure 180 feet from tip to tip. They run 
great risks in the survey for they are easily taken 
by the faster machines and they offer a much better 
target for the enemy's guns. 

For some time after the war opened Germany had 
the advantage in the number of airplanes and scouts, 
AIR but in 1917 the Allies obtained control of 

PATROLS the air along a front of several hundred 
miles. The Allied armies now employ huge flotillas 
of airplanes operating up and down the lines. One 
patrol flies at a height of 6,000 feet, or a little more 
than a mile, while the higher patrols are from 20,000 
feet to 23,000 feet up. It is the duty of the higher 
patrol to prevent German machines from coming 
over the line at great height and sweeping down on 
the Allied patrol flying ten thousand feet below. 

The purpose of the two patrols is to prevent any 
German airmen from crossing the line to obtain 
photographs and other valuable information con- 
cerning the defensive works and artillery and the 



60 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

movement of troops. If an army is able to control 
the air they may keep their plans a secret from the 
enemy. They may move up troops, or bnild rail- 
roads or extend their trenches or build new gun 
emplacements without giving the enemy an inkling 
of where the next attack is to be launched. 

Then there is the airship or Zeppelin, sometimes 
called the dirigible, which is large, slow and un- 
THE wieldy and offers a mark like a haystack 

ZEPPELIN to the gun-fire from the land. However, 
the Zeppelin has some points in her favor. She can 
remain in the air many days. She may hover over 
a certain spot with her engine stopped and her car 
motionless, which gives opportunity for detailed 
observation, or the Zeppelin may hover at the rear 
of her own lines and with her powerful wireless 
plant remain aloft from dawn until dusk. Thus 
her observers can watch constantly the enemy's 
battle front and signal any change they may notice 
in the position of the troops. The airship can also 
fly safely at night. For destructive raids the 
Germans at first used only the Zeppelin. She could 
carry two and one-half tons of shells to a height of 
two miles. Now the anti-aircraft guns are so accu- 
rate and the enemy airplanes so much faster that the 
slow-flying Zeppelins seldom pass over enemy coun- 
try except at night. 

Much excitement was shown when German Zeppe- 
lins attacked London and Paris early in the war. 
Great precautions were taken to darken these cities 
at night. Gigantic searchlights and anti-aircraft 
guns were pointed toward the London sky. One 
Zeppelin raided London in May, 1915, killing only 
6 persons. Another in August killed 10 citizens. A 
third in September destroyed 37 lives. But if this 



WAE IX THE AIR 61 

was the best tlie enemy could do it was not such a 
serious matter and the alarm quieted. However, a 
stronger air raid in October resulted in 169 casual- 
ties. The Allies now organized counter raids which 
flew over German cities. There was a powerful flock 
of 32 battle planes much stronger and larger than 
ordinary airplanes which dropped bombs on German 
munition factories. Other flocks of Allied planes 
made attacks on German cities. 

One of the most interesting single events of the 
first year's war was an encounter between an Eng- 
lish monoplane and a German Zeppelin. It ended in 
the destruction of the Zeppelin and won the Victoria 
cross for the gallant aviator, Warneford. He was 
killed, however, ten days later in another air battle. 
On the whole the Zeppelins have disappointed the 
Germans in the war. The Allies have not used them 
extensively. 

The artillery has attempted to check aircraft but 
has been unable to drive off the airplanes. The 
ANTi-AmcRAFT flying scouts have, in a remarkable 
GUNS degree, been able to escape gun fire, 

showing that they represent a more powerful 
weapon than the gnins that combat them. Machines 
are wrecked and the pilots killed, but the valuable 
service which they render justifies the loss. 

The anti-aircraft guns find their range in several 
ways. Some times the gunner fires a shell which 
bursts in a cloud of smoke and by the relative posi- 
tion of this smoke to the airplane he finds his range. 
Instead of a shell that bursts in smoke the Germans 
send up in their test shell a parachute which is set 
free when the shell bursts. It remains for a while a 
conspicuous mark and gives the gunner time to 
make any corrections in the timing of his fuse. 



62 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

He then fires many shells of shrapnel. These are 
filled with a large number of round bullets about 
the size of marbles which fly out when the shell 
bursts and spread over a great space. The moment 
of bursting is controlled by the gunner by means of a 
time fuse. After gauging the height of the machine 
and the speed at which it is flying, he fixes the 
fuse to explode the shell as near the airplane as 
possible. Some of the shrapnel shells weigh as 
much as 20 pounds, while some are from only 1 to 3 
pounds in weight. 

A high speed scout traveling 130 miles an hour 
covers in each second a distance of 180 feet. A 
projectile fired from the ground at a craft a mile 
high takes several seconds to reach that height. To 
aim directly at the plane then is useless. The gunner 
must point his weapon some distance in advance 
of the airplane. If the craft moves in a zigzag line 
it is most difficult to hit. Nevertheless, the Germans 
are very skillful with their anti-aircraft guns. They 
often bring down machines from a height of 10,000 
to 12,000 feet. The expert gunners throw a ring of 
shrapnel around the enemy's machines and a pilot 
has to zigzag like a ship being chased by a submarine 
to avoid disaster. 

Yet the Germans may fire as many as 100 to 200 
rounds at one machine and still not do enough 
damage to prevent the pilot from reaching home. It 
is surprising to know how many times a craft may 
be hit without being seriously damaged. The airmen 
often return with their machines riddled with holes 
that were fired by the enemy 's guns ; yet they may 
be, themselves, uninjured. However, airplanes of 
both sides have been brought down by the score by 
the anti-aircraft fire, the most of them in flames and 



WAR IN THE AIR 63 

their pilots burned to death before reaching the 
ground. 

When the airplanes are sent out to bomb the 
works of the enemy, fifty or more machines will 
BOMBS FROM sometimes start out in the dead of night 
THE AIR over the hostile lines and penetrate 

from one to several hundred miles into the enemy's 
territory. They bomb railroad bridges, munition 
plants and military works. The staff commander 
takes the lead by firing a signal pistol which drops 
signal lights to the machines which follow so they 
will know whether to turn to the right or the left 
and when to throw their bombs. The pilots have 
their course set before starting and can tell by the 
same system that is used aboard a boat in which 
direction they are going and how far they have gone. 
They know the distance from point to point and how 
many minutes it should take them to cover that dis- 
tance. The Germans do not fancy flying at night 
so much as the Allies, but concentrate to a great 
extent on their day work. 

Both the Germans and the Allies have some won- 
derful pilots. Among the foremost German pilots 
TAMOUS were Captain Boelke and Captain Immel- 
FLYERS mann. Both are now dead. In the course 
of hundreds of fights they brought down a large 
number of British and French machines. Boelke 
was noted for his dive at an opponent from a great 
height sometimes as high as 15,000 to 20,000 feet. 
All the time his machine made a speed around 150 
miles an hour while he was firing at his opponents 
with a machine gun, throwing 800 shots a minute. 
At other times he would come up behind an opponent 
and shoot into the tail of his machine in an attempt 
to disable the rudder. If he missed on the first dive 



64 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR 

he seldom came up again. He was remarkable for 
his quick and sudden turns. 

Immelmann's favorite maneuver was to allow the 
Allied pilot to come up back of him on the ' ' tail ' ' of 
his machine, as they say, and when about to be 
taken Immelmann would shoot his plane almost 
straight up in the air and then suddenly dive down 
again almost to the point where he was before, with 
the result that he was "sitting on the tail" of the 
opposing pilot and sending him to his doom before 
he had recovered from his surprise. In this manner 
he gained what the pilots call "a bead" on his enemy 
and gave him a shower of lead at close range. The 
Germans idolized those two brave airmen. They 
killed something like 80 Allied pilots. During the 
first years of the war the Germans had superior 
machines. But an airplane in these days gets out 
of date in a very short time. The nation that keeps 
to the lead in their improvement has the advantage 
in every conflict. 

Captain Ball, the favorite British pilot, has to 
his credit over fifty victims. His machine was called 
the "Red Devil" because its nose was painted red. 
It made as high as 145 miles an hour. He often 
wandered off by himself and sought out the enemy 
in the latter 's lines. Sometimes he swooped down 
within a short distance of the ground and attacked 
the infantry in camp far back of the fighting lines. 
He sought out and attacked German pilots lurking 
in the cloud banks. Alone he fought as many as ten 
machines and had hundreds of miraculous escapes. 
The British pilots all say that "Ball leads a charmed 
life." He was forced to earth as many as three 
times in a single day, and every time he went up 
again as soon as he could get another machine ready. 



WAE IN THE AIE 65 

The Germans have set a price on his head, but as 
yet, he is still at large. One American scout, Luf- 
berry, of the Lafayette squadron of American flyers, 
has brought down a large number of machines of the 
enemy. 

So important is the airman in connection with 
modern artillery that it is said if one army had 
DIRECTING ARTILLERY airplanes and the other had 
FIRE FROM THE SKY nouc, the War would be over 
in six months. The planes signal by means of wire- 
less messages sent to the battery commander. The 
airman flies over the position about a mile up and 
directs the shooting of the artillery from this point. 
He keeps signalling how far short or how much to 
the right or the left the shells are falling in the 
enemy's lines. When he has given the correct range 
he proceeds to the next position and repeats his 
service. 

All the time his machine is being subjected to an 
intense bombardment from the anti-aircraft guns 
which are firing shrapnel shells by the hundred. 
Fragments of shells are all about him, beneath and 
above and on all sides. For three hours at a time 
the airman must sometimes endure this bombard- 
ment and there is no telling when the tail of his 
machine or some vital part may be blown away and 
the machine become wrapped in flames. The work 
is so nerve racking that it is no wonder that after 
a pilot is through the ordeal he is shaking so that he 
cannot screw a nut or a bolt. 

One British pilot says: *'It is a most interesting 
sight to watch a battle from the air. One can see 
A FLYER'S the flashes of the guns on both sides 
EYE VIEW extending right and left for miles. He 
can see the shells explode and estimate the accuracy 



66 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

of the shots. Hundreds of thousands of men are 
pegging away at each other from their trenches." 
The whole conflict is plain to the airman, while down 
below in a good many cases the gunners cannot see 
what they are firing at. With the long range guns 
it is more and more evident that the side that wins 
must be supreme in the air. 

Taking photographs of the positions of the enemy 
and making maps of their battle plans is an impor- 
tant work of the airmen. Five or more aviators 
are sent up to make photographs behind the enemy's 
lines. One of the machines carries the camera and 
the others, which are very speedy, fly about it, above 
and below, for protection. The fast little machines 
that accompany the photographer are called 
"vipers" or "maggots." They may be attacked by 
twenty German machines from a height of 20,000 
feet. Then a free-for-all fight ensues. All this is 
dangerous and exciting enough for any American 
boy that may dream of going in for air service. 

The United States planned to put into service 
many thousand airplanes. Great battles in the air 
are likely to occur before the war is over. 



CHAPTER X 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1915 
WEST FRONT 

In the beginning of January, 1915, the six hun- 
dred-mile battle line in Belgium and France extended 
from the coast of the English Channel to the border 
of Switzerland. It was so formidably entrenched 
and fortified that it could not be broken except at a 
terrific cost of life and shells. Still the Allies confi- 
dently planned to undertake a general offensive 
movement in the spring months of 1915. The Bel- 
gians then held about 18 miles, the British 31 miles 
and the French army, about two and a half million 
strong, defended the remaining 543 miles. 

During the winter months there was considerable 
nibbling at the German lines, but very little was 
BATTLE OP accomplished. On March 10, 1915, 

NEUVE CHAPELLE the British with 500,000 men be- 
gan their first offensive. In the early morning they 
poured a terrific bombardment into the German 
trenches west of Neuve Chapelle to prepare the way 
for an infantry attack. Before noon the village was 
a smoldering heap of ruins and was completely in 
the hands of the English. North of the village the 
artillery fire had not been so effective in demolishing 
the German defenses and the British were caught in 
barbed wire entanglements and cruelly shot down 
by^the German machine guns. 

In spite of the severe losses the first attack of 
the Allies succeeded. But on the two following days 



68 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAR 

tlie English failed to push their advantage with 
energy and the Germans were allowed time to 
recover from the surprise. Moreover, on the second 
and third days of the fighting the British artillery 
was poorly aimed on account of cloudy weather. 
Because of the lack of a telephonic communication 
the orders were poorly obeyed. So the British failed 
to gain the commanding ridge east of Neuve Cha- 
pelle. Their commander, Sir John French, had 
advanced his line a mile or so on a three-mile front, 
but he had lost 13,000 men. Thus after three days 
of British offensive things were brought to a stand- 
still. 

Lord Kitchener told the House of Lords that the 
supply of munitions was causing him serious anxiety. 
Sir John French's dispatches describing the Battle 
of Neuve Chapelle also referred to the pressing need 
of an unlimited supply of ammunition. Thus the 
first great move of the British was rewarded with 
poor success because of the lack of artillery support 
after the initial bombardment. The Allies were just 
then beginning to realize what piles of shells would 
be needed in a modern trench battle. 

The Battle of Champagne in September, 1915, was 
the second attempt on the part of the Allies to break 
A FRENCH through the German line in France. The 
DRIVE battle was fought by the French. They 

showed that it was possible to drive the enemy from 
a fortified trench position. They took 23,000 pris- 
oners and over 100 guns in five days' fighting. But 
the victory was too costly to continue. Thousands 
of brave Frenchmen laid down their lives for each 
small gain. Thus the attempt to break the line was 
halted. The year 1915 saw almost no change on the 
west front in France and Belgium. England and 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1915— EASTERN FRONT 69 

France were not yet as well equipped nor such skill- 
ful trench fighters as their enemy. Still Germany 
could not advance toward Paris or Calais. 
EASTERN FRONT (1915) 

Early in the year 1915, the Eussians again invaded 
Prussia and were met by Von Hindenberg. The 
Kussian army had gradually advanced until it faced 
a region of lake and bog known as the Mazurian 
Lakes. At one point it had gone upon the ice among 
frozen swamps into very dangerous ground. There 
were only small forces of the Kaiser's men facing 
the Czar's army, and the Germans kept falling back 
slowly. Behind them as a screen Von Hindenburg 
quickly gathered a large force from the front in 
Poland with his splendid strategic railways. 

Suddenly he struck the Russians on both flanks 
and caught them in this intricate lake district. The 
Russians did not yet know how strong their enemy 
was, so they fought to free themselves while they 
should have been retreating. The result was a great 
disaster. They lost 100,000 prisoners and 50,000 
more in killed and wounded. They were driven out 
of east Prussia and fled in disorder toward Grodno. 
It is said that Von Hindenberg had made a special 
study of the Mazurian lake region years before this, 
so that he would be prepared to win just such a battle 
as he had now won. 

While the Russians lost a great army it was their 
sacrifice that saved Paris a second time. The Ger- 
GERMAN mans had to hurry troops from the west 
PLANS FAIL front and thus they put off a second 
attempt on Paris. All this while France and Eng- 
land were busy collecting and drilling armies and 
piling up munitions so that when Germany again 
struck the west front it was too late to break through. 



70 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

Germany's first plan to dispose of France and then 
turn against Kussia had failed at the Marne and 
at the Yser and the western line had become a dead- 
lock. Meantime the Kaiser had left Austria to pro- 
tect her eastern frontier. The Austrian army was 
to hold back the hosts of the Czar, but in four weeks 
the troops of Austria had been routed and were 
fleeing from Lemberg. Germany had not disposed 
of France in the first six weeks while Eussia was 
well along in the work of disposing of Austria. 

The Eussian soldiers proved to be valiant fighters 
and they were commanded by brilliant generals. 
RUSSIANS Grand Duke Nicholas was directing 

TAKE GALiciA the Russian armies. By September, 
1914, Lemberg was reached and occupied and thou- 
sands of Austrians were taken prisoners. The Eus- 
sians did not stop at Lemberg but moved on west- 
ward seventy miles farther to the Eiver San, where 
they again routed the Austrians and surrounded the 
fortress of Przemysl. This fortress was at last taken 
with 20,000 prisoners and 1,000 guns. By the end 
of September the Eussian advance troops were 
within range of Cracow. Here they held their posi- 
tion for several weeks while they spread out along 
the Carpathian Mountains and penetrated through 
the passes into Hungary, where they raided the 
plains of that country. The Eussians had now con- 
quered the entire province of Galicia in Austria. It 
began to look as if the Czar's heroes would capture 
,Cracow and enter Germany from the south. 

The Germans were alarmed and sent troops from 
the west front to aid the Austrians. The Austrians 
and Germans then drove the Eussians back to the 
Eiver San. Here a great battle was fought, lasting 
four days, in which the Eussians were finally victor- 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1915— EASTERN FRONT 71 

ious. By November, 1914, the Kussians had again 
reached the outskirts of Cracow. Germany saw she 
must do something now to save Austria before she 
herself conquered France. Austria had become too 
weak to hold her territory. Her troops had to have 
their courage stiffened by the aid of German soldiers. 

The Germans now reversed their plan and decided 
to hold the west front, but not to undertake to break 
THE GERMANS it, while they sent most of their men 
CHANGE PLANS to the cast front to save Austria and 
crush Russia. All the soldiers that could be spared 
from the west front were sent against the Czar's 
troops. 

Thus the Austrians and Germans together with 
an army of two million men and 1,500 heavy guns 
attacked the Russians. General von Mackensen 
came from Germany to lead them. The Russians 
had fought a magnificent campaign and had been at 
every point victorious over Austria, but now their 
ammunition failed them when it was most needed. 
It has been found in this war that no army can win 
a battle without its artillery, for rifles will not hold 
their own against cannon. 

In May, 1915, Von Mackensen struck the Russian 
front in West Galicia with such a massing of artillery 
as had not been seen before. He shattered the Rus- 
sian line and took 30,000 prisoners. The Russians 
resisted stubbornly in battle after battle, but they 
were outnumbered and, being without shells, they 
gradually had to give ground. They yielded 
Przemysl and retired to Lemberg. Presently they 
lost Lemberg and a week later Von Mackensen began 
his drive into Russian territory. 

The German armies under Von Hindenberg on the 



72 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAB 

north and Von Mackensen on the south on a nine 
FALL OF hundred mile front were now fighting for 
WARSAW Warsaw. In August, 1915, Warsaw fell 
to the Germans and the province of Eussian Poland 
was lost and a great retreat began. 

The Eussian line, 300 miles long, was swept back 
across Eussian Poland toward Moscow. An area 
230 miles wide, three times as large as the state of 
New York, was made desolate. The homes and 
buildings were burned and tens of thousands of 
people starved. All along the roads was the proof 
of the terrible suffering. Broken vehicles, old cloth- 
ing, baby carriages and small human bones, the 
larger ones having been gathered by the Germans 
for fertilizer. 

Grand Duke Nicholas without ammunition per- 
formed a wonderful feat in saving his army. It was 
the Eussian army that the Germans desired to 
capture rather than any j^articular province or fort. 
They came near taking a great army when they 
captured Warsaw, but Nicholas by hard fighting 
saved both his army and artillery and moved east- 
ward. The German advance at last was stopped, 
and they were not able to go farther. 

They had won territory but they had failed in 
capturing the Eussian armies. Grand Duke Nicholas 
was relieved of his command of the Eussian forces 
at this time because he was thought to be too 
cautious. Germany had failed to crush Eussia as 
she had failed to crush France. And yet, while 
Germany had not captured the Eussian army, she 
had taken the province of Poland from Eussia and 
had taken some of the most powerful fortresses in 
the world. In spite of the escape of the main forces 
of the army, it was said Germany had taken over a 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 191^-ITALIAN FRONT 73 

million prisoners, and the Kaiser believed that Rus- 
sia was out of the fighting. 

Large bodies of German troops were then sent 
under Von Mackensen to overwhelm Serbia and open 
up railroad lines to the Turks at Constantinople. 

After remaining neutral nearly ten months Italy 
declared war on Austria in May, 1915. Italian 
ITALY ENTERS statesmen said that Austria was aim- 
THE WAR (1915) j^g ^q extend her possessions to the 
eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Italy was ambi- 
tious to control that shore. Then, too, there are a 
number of provinces of Austria whose populations 
are mainly Italians and Italy thought these people 
should be allowed to live under their own flag. More- 
over, Italy charged Austria with provoking the war 
with the intention of seizing Serbia, and this was a 
menace to the peace and the balance of power in the 
Balkans in which Italy was interested. 

Since Austria was unwilling to accept the Italian 
demands as to adjustment of territory, war was 
declared and 1,000,000 Italian soldiers went to the 
front. Italy had a hard problem to protect her 
frontier. Austria held the mountains and the 
sources of several rivers which flowed down into 
Italian territory. It was these mountain strongholds 
that the Italians would be forced to take to make 
any progress against their enemy. Italy's progress 
into Austrian territory was slow and costly. Her 
aim was to capture the Austrian port of Trieste and 
thus secure for herself the commanding positions on 
the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN 

In February, 1915, the Allies decided to attack the 
Dardanelles. This strait leading to Constantinople 
had been captured in 1807, but since that time 
the old fortifications had been replaced by the most 
modern defensive works. Expert German advisers 
had directed the emplacement of strong batteries 
to command the approach by land and sea. There 
were 14-inch Krupp guns placed so they could be 
trained on the fleet of an enemy. 

The British knew that to attempt to capture the 
Dardanelles was a hazardous undertaking, but should 
they succeed, the reward would be great. If the 
Allies could get through the straits with a fleet 
Constantinople would fall and Turkey would be 
eliminated from the conflict, because her country 
would be cut in two. If Constantinople were taken 
the Turkish attacks on Persia and Egypt would be 
stopped, and if the straits were opened Russia would 
find a free outlet for her great stores of wheat and 
a chance to receive the ammunition which she needed 
very sorely and which could be furnished her as fast 
as the factories of the Allies and neutral nations 
could turn it out. 

Then the moral effect of the capture of Constanti- 
nople would be tremendous. It would put new life 
and hope into the soldiers of France, Russia and 
Great Britain and would encourage Italy to join the 
winning side. It would also, perhaps, bring the other 



THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN 75 

Balkan nations into the war on the side of the Allies. 
Greece and Roumania were wavering and needed 
a decisive victory to show them where to stand. 
Bulgaria, it was known, was inclined to join the 
Central Powers but should the Allies capture Con- 
stantinople, she might change her mind. 

So, with all this at stake, the British sent a power- 
ful fleet to attack the forts of the Dardanelles. There 
BRITISH FLEET Were thirteen British battle 

ATTACKS THE STRAITS gi^ipg, including the super- 
dreadnaught "Queen Elizabeth" with her eight 
15-inch guns. There were many others of the most 
wonderful warships afloat. In all there were nearly 
seventy 12-inch guns and a greater number slightly 
smaller. 

The first task of the Anglo-French fleet was to 
reduce the outer forts of the strait. The entrance 
to the Dardanelles was about two and three-eighths 
miles wide and was defended by certain forts on the 
tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula. In February, 1915, 
the fleet began a heavy bombardment of the forts. 
The batteries on shore were enormously outnum- 
bered and outranged by the guns of the battleships. 
The ''Queen Elizabeth" stood safe out of range of 
the land guns and rained 15-inch shells on the Turk- 
ish gunners. The other ships, at a comparatively 
safe distance but with shorter range, also poured 
their shells on the fort. Toward evening of Febru- 
ary 25 certain of the Allied fleet sailed in close to 
the fort and by evening the last Turkish gun had 
been put out of action. 

The next day landing parties were sent ashore to 
blow up the remains of the Turkish forts. But the 
landing force was surprised by Turkish troops and 
compelled to beat a hasty retreat. However, the big 



76 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR 

guns of the four forts had been put out of action 
and it was clear that the fleet had no more to fear 
from either shore of the entrance to the strait. The 
bombardment had also swept the first few miles of 
the channel clear of mines so that battleships now 
ventured into the lower end of the channel to bom- 
bard the forts situated fourteen miles from the 
entrance. 

This point, known as the Narrows, is about three- 
quarters of a mile wide. Here were planted the 
THE FLEET strongest Turkish forts and here would 
TAILS i)Q i]iQ decisive battle. After a vigorous 

cannonade some of the forts stopped firing and the 
commanders of the fleet thought they had been 
silenced so they prepared to move in closer to the 
Narrows. Suddenly the forts, which were supposed 
to have been conquered, blazed forth again. Float- 
ing mines were sent down the channel carried by the 
swift current. Three large shells and a mine struck 
the French ship '^Bouvet.'* Within three minutes, 
almost before the sound of the explosion had died 
away, the battleship sank with all her crew on board. 
Another mine hit the "'Irresistible," a British ship, 
but its crew was picked up by destroyers under fire. 
The next victim was the ** Ocean" which was sud- 
denly sunk by a mine. The Turkish guns set the 
"Inflexible" on fire, opened a great gap in the 
armor plate of another ship, and inflicted severe 
punishment on several others. At twilight the great 
fleet steamed out of the strait, followed by parting 
shots from the forts. The attempt was a failure. 
More than 2,000 men and three great battleships had 
been sacrificed in vain. 

But instead of admitting their defeat and giving 



THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN 77 

up the Dardanelles campaign entirely, the British 
A LAND decided to land troops on the Gallipoli 
ATTACK Peninsula, hoping a land attack would suc- 
ceed where the navy had failed. The land campaign 
was undertaken at the end of April by an Anglo- 
French force of 120,000 men under General Hamil- 
ton. It was a strangely mixed company consisting 
of Australian divisions. New Zealand divisions, 
Indian troops and British naval divisions. As 
Marshal Joffre was unwilling to spare any men from 
the regular battle line in France, the French had only 
a small detachment. The Turkish army was com- 
manded by the skillful German General, Von San- 
ders, and it held a very strong position. 

On a beautiful Sunday morning at daybreak April 
25, 1915, the British troops landed at six different 
points on the Gallipoli Peninsula while the French 
troops landed at still another point. One party of 
Australians and New Zealanders gallantly charged 
up the beach under heavy fire, ousted the Turkish 
riflemen from their trenches, and then scrambled 
up the cliffs that rose abruptly forty feet from the 
water's edge. There they withstood the fierce Turk- 
ish counter attack, made good their position, and 
proceeded to **dig in." One of the landing parties 
was caught in wire entanglements and mowed down 
by concealed machine guns. The French troops 
landed and took 500 prisoners. By May the entire 
force had been landed. 

There were several encounters, some of which 
were won by the Allies and some by the Turks, but 
on June 4, 1915, there came a conflict which marked 
the failure of the Allies ' compaign on the tip of the 
Gallipoli Peninsula. Three bloody battles were 
fought, ammunition was wasted in terrific bombard- 



78 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

ment, and somewhere between forty and seventy 
thousand men were slain ; yet the principal Turkish 
position remained unconquered. Three more great 
battleships of the fleet were lost from torpedoes and 
the fleet withdrew leaving the army without its 
support. 

Two British submarines covered themselves with 
glory by raiding the Sea of Marmora. They pene- 
trated the Narrows and entered the harbor of Con- 
stantinople. One of them sank two Turkish gunboats 
and a transport and the other did even better. It 
sank three Turkish transports, three store-ships and 
a gunboat and returned through the Narrows to the 
British fleet. 

But a deadlock had come upon the Peninsula. 
With great cost a few hundred yards were gained 
A BRITISH by the Allies, and on one charge they 
DEFEAT actually reached the heights of the neck 
where they could look down upon the Dardanelles, 
but they were compelled to fall back for lack of sup- 
port. The Turks were valiant fighters. They swept 
down the slopes in the face of murderous artillery 
fire and dislodged the British from the foothold 
which they had gained. The Allied troops were also 
cut down by disease. 

At last General Hamilton was recalled to England 
and Lord Kitchener was sent to investigate the sit- 
uation. Then, to the great disappointment of the 
Allies, the British troops were withdrawn in Decem- 
ber, 1915. This was the greatest disappointment of 
the year. The British had lost 114,000 men, 26,000 
of whom were dead, and they had failed to take the 
Dardanelles. 



THE DAEDANELLES CAMPAIGN 79 

Now that the Kussians were defeated and out of 
the fighting for good, as the Kaiser believed, Ger- 
SERBIA many turned her attention to her 

CONQUERED (1915) ambitious plan to gain control of 
the Balkans. This, we repeat, was the great German 
ambition that more than any other was responsible 
for this war. To control the Balkan country and 
to establish a great federation of German states in 
middle Europe extending from the Baltic through 
to Constantinople and beyond was her principal 
reason for fighting. 

Late in September, 1915, rumors were abroad that 
a large army was massing in Austria for a great 
drive on Serbia. Turkey had been fighting on the 
side of Germany for many months, but as yet there 
was no contact between the two countries. Germany 
was most anxious to capture the railroad running 
through Serbia to Constantinople, so as to furnish 
the Turks with ammunition which they badly needed. 
Germany also wished to obtain food supplies from 
Turkey and from the East. 

In October the Central Powers, with Von Macken- 
sen in command, hurled 400,000 men against the 
VON MACKENSEN'S Serbian frontier. They forced 
^KiVE a passage across the Drina and 

the Danube. The Serbians fought bravely, as they 
had before, but while they had been equal to the 
Austrians, they were not equal to the combined 
powers of Austria and Germany. They would not 
have fared so badly even then, perhaps, if it had not 
been that they were treacherously struck on the flank 
by Bulgaria, who now entered the war as an ally of 
the Germans. It was not long until the Bulgars had 
driven the Serbians far enough back so that the 
Bulgar army could join that of the Germans. Nish 



80 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

was captured and the Bulgars swept west and 
reached Monastir in November. 

The English and French had landed at Saloniki 
and had attempted to move up the Vardar valley to 
assist Serbia, but they were too late to save her, 
for the conquest of Serbia was now complete. A 
large part of the Serbian army had escaped in one of 
the most terrible Tetreats in history, across jthe 
snowy mountains of Albania. Thousands of women, 
children and old men met starvation. 

In this manner Germany put Serbia out of the 
fighting and had gained control of the railroad lead- 
A GREAT ing to Constantinople. Turkey 

GERMAN VICTORY and the Central Powers were now 
in direct communication, and the railroad from the 
Danube to Bagdad was well in the hands of the Ger- 
mans. This German victory was another severe 
blow to the Allies and ended completely the hope of 
England to capture the Dardanelles. It remains 
to be seen when peace is made whether or not this 
campaign will give the control of the Balkan coun^ 
tries to Germany and Austria. 

The year 1915 was rich in successes for the Kaiser 
in Europe, but Germany had but little left of its 
once extensive colonial empire. England had taken 
New Guinea, the Samoan Islands and the Bismarck 
Islands. Japan had seized Kiao Chau, the Caroline, 
Marshall and Solomon Islands. Germany had left 
only German East Africa and the Kameruns, which 
were being invaded by British and French forces. 



CHAPTER XII 

CAMPAIGN OF 1916 
WEST FRONT 

In 1916, when the Germans had found after their 
first year of fighting that they could not break 
THE SECOND through the western front and 

BATTLE OF YPRES take Calais by straight old-fash- 
ioned fighting, they determined to use new means. 
They began the second battle of Ypres in April by 
releasing great billows of poisonous gases, which 
were carried by the breeze into the trenches occupied 
by the French-Colonial troops west of the Canadian 
position. The French soldiers, unable to withstand 
the deadly gas, retreated in disorder, leaving a gap 
through which the Germans poured. But the daunt- 
less Canadian troops extended their line to close up 
the gap and stopped the German advance. With 
remarkable courage they held the position for three 
days and three nights until reinforcements arrived. 
They were greatly outnumbered and met with great 
loss, but fought with such determination and courage 
that the story of their valor will live in Canadian his- 
tory forever. 

This was the first use of poisonous gas known to 
warfare, and it took the Allies entirely by surprise. 
When the great clouds were seen bearing down upon 
them, some one laughingly said: ''What are they 
trying to do now, smoke us out!" But the question 
was answered when they saw their comrades falling 
about them and caught whiffs of the suffocating 



82 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

fumes. Its action was most deadly, killing its vic- 
tims in five or six minutes. One quick-witted 
Canadian officer saved many of his men by shouting 
to them to wet their handkerchiefs from their can- 
teens and put them over their faces. 

In February, 1916, began a ten months' conflict 
known as the Battle of Verdun, which will take its 
BATTLE OP place in history as one of the greatest 
VERDUN (1916) battles of the world war. It was a 
supreme eifort of Germany to crush France by a 
thunderbolt and end the war. It employed more 
soldiers and cost a larger number of dead and 
wounded and endured longer than any engagement 
on a single point in this or any other war. The 
German Crown Prince was in command of the wing 
of the German army and it is thought he wanted to 
win a great battle in order to please his people and 
seal his chance of following his father on the throne. 
Verdun has been noted in history as a great fortified 
center. To capture it would greatly encourage the 
people of the Central Powers and be a master blow 
to the Allies. The Germans wanted to say to the 
world : *' We can conquer the most strongly fortified 
position of the enemy and wipe out the army which 
defends it." 

When the attack was made at Verdun the French 
were at first surprised, but they hung on most firmly, 
retreating slowly and making the effort cost the 
Germans as much as possible. The Germans had 
cut off all the French railroads but one leading to 
the fortress. But General Petain put in motion 
40,000 motor trucks, all traveling on schedule time, 
to supply the French army with food and shells. At 
first it was the plan to let the Germans have Verdun 
if they were willing to sacrifice enough men to its 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916— WEST FRONT 83 

capture, but on second thought the French saw that 
the moral influence of such a victory would redound 
too much to the honor of the Germans, so they 
refused to let the enemy have their great fortress. 
So terrible was the fighting that certain positions 
were taken and lost several times in one day. In the 
latter part of June the Germans had reached a posi- 
tion northeast of Verdun within the inner circle of 
its fortifications, but they could go no further. The 
English then began an offensive at the Somme which 
brought German failure by forcing them to send 
troops to that battle front. 

In the autumn the French set out to regain their 
lost ground at Verdun. They made an attack in 
THE FRENCH October and advanced two miles over 
RECOVER ALL ^ f our-mile front and recaptured the 
fort and village of Douaumont. A few days later 
they took the fort at Vaux and re-occupied the vil- 
lage. In December they again advanced two miles on 
the seven-mile front and took 11,000 prisoners and 
many cannon and machine guns. And so the tide had 
turned and the Germans had failed at Verdun with 
a loss of 500,000 men. 

The German Crown Prince had failed to win his 
spurs at Verdun, although he hammered away at 
the fortress from February until July. The valor 
shown by the men on both sides was most marvelous. 
Thousands of French and Germans laid down their 
lives at every point of the conflict. The French 
under General Petain made the Germans pay dearly 
for every inch of ground gained and in the end 
regained the most of it in very short order and with 
little loss. The Germans said the ''French army 
was being bled to death" at Verdun, but their own 
losses probably exceeded those of the French. It 



84 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

was a terrible defeat for Germany, second only to 
that of the Marne. 

At Neuve Chapelle, we remember, the English paid 
a tremendous price for a mile of gain which they 
BATTLE OF could not extend. The French 

THE soMME (1916) attack at Champagne in 1915 cap- 
tured 25,000 prisoners and made a gain of only two 
miles at most because they could not stand the losses. 
However, in July, 1916, the Allies were in a position 
to match gun for gun with the Germans. Up to this 
time the German troops had had every advantage 
due to their superb preparation, their mammoth 
artillery arid their supply of munitions. The Allies 
were now even better equipped than the enemy with 
instruments for trench warfare. 

At this battle of the Somme some new factors 
were disclosed. The British soon showed that they 
ALLIES SUPERIOR Outweighed the Germans in guns 
IN MEN AND GUNS and ammunition. It was said that 
in the bombq,rdment the British used 500,000 shells 
a day. Mountains of shells were fired to clear the 
way for the infantry. They drove a bulge into the 
German front 20 miles in breadth and 9 miles deep 
at the deepest point. They captured scores of vil- 
lages and fortified positions and conquered the ridge 
overlooking Baupaume. The German loss was esti- 
mated at about 700,000 men including 95,000 prison- 
ers, 135 heavy guns, 180 field-pieces and 1400 ma- 
chine guns. The Germans claimed that the Allies 
lost between 800,000 and 900,000 men. Now the win- 
ter rainy season set in and stopped the Allied opera- 
tions, but the British army had proven that they had 
mastered the new methods of warfare and they 
looked forward to spring. 

An incident of this year, and a most dramatic one, 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916— ITALIAN FRONT 85 

was the coming of Russian soldiers to France. They 
were greeted everywhere with much enthusiasm and 
after a few weeks of drilling were sent to the front to 
fight. The men were sent by the Czar as a token of 
the firmness of his friendship for the Allies. 

ITALIAN AND TURKISH FRONTS 

One result of the failure of the Allies at the Dar- 
danelles was to release the Turkish army of some- 
THE BAGDAD thing like 200,000 men to be used 
CAMPAIGN (1916) elsewhere. The Turks at once 
planned a campaign against Egypt to take posses- 
sion of the Suez Canal and cut off England from her 
direct route to India and Australia. 

The difficulties of an attack against the Suez Canal 
were enormous. The attacking forces must drag 
their artillery and carry their pontoon bridges more 
than a hundred miles through the desert of the Sinai 
Peninsula. At the end of their long, hard journey 
the Turks would find the Canal guarded by warships 
and by a large force of Colonial and Egyptian 
troops. 

In January 1916 the Turkish commander with an 
army of thirty or forty thousand men crossed the 
SUEZ Sinai Peninsula. The main Turkish col- 

ATTACKED -Qmns reached the Canal in the nights of 
February 2 and 3. Dragging their pontoons, the 
Turks ran to the water's edge and began to build a 
bridge across the Canal. They were discovered by 
the British troops on the west side and the battle 
began in earnest. Under the murderous fire of the 
English guns the Turks attempted to cross the Canal 
in boats and rafts. One boatload actually reached 
the western banks and attacked the British from the 
rear. But with torpedo boats and gunboats the Brit- 



86 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE 

isli frustrated the attempt to bridge the Canal and in 
the middle of the afternoon the Turks fled leaving 
500 men killed and 600 prisoners. The main Turkish 
force, however, made good its retreat. 

The British now began a campaign to reach Bag- 
dad. Going by water into the Persian Grulf they de- 
MARCH ON feated the Turks and captured Busrah. 
BAGDAD Tj^g British under General Townshend 
had only a small force, but he defeated the Turks and 
moved up the Tigris. He again defeated the Turks 
before Kut-el-Amara and occupied that city. With 
small forces the English had penetrated more than 
two hundred miles into Mesopotamia. Bagdad was 
only one hundred miles farther up the river, and 
General Townshend with his small army, was sent 
on to Bagdad. 

On November 22, General Townshend attacked and 
captured the Turkish defense position eighteen miles 
from this city. Then the tide turned. Townshend 
was overwhelmed by superior numbers and defeated 
with a loss of nearly 5,000 of his 20,000 men. He was 
driven back to Kut-el-Amara, where he was sur- 
rounded. A relief expedition was sent by the British, 
under General Aylmer, but it failed to reach Town- 
shend 's army until they were starved out and forced 
to surrender to the Turks. 

Germany had told the world that Russia was so 
badly exhausted that she would not be able to ' * come 
THE AUSTRIAN DRIVE back." Therefore, she switched 
ON ITALY (1916) niauy of her troops from the 

Eussian front to France while Austria sent her re- 
serves from the eastern front against Italy. 

The war between Austria and Italy was carried on 
chiefly among the valleys and mountains of the Tren- 
tino. Great bravery was shown by troops on both 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916— ITALIAN FRONT 87 

sides but there were no decisive results. All the 
rivers here flow from Austria into Italy and Austria 
held the sources of the rivers among the mountains, 
positions that were very hard to take. Italy, on the 
other hand, held the flat valleys which were hard to 
defend. 

In the latter part of May, 1916, the Austrians, re- 
enforced by the troops from the Russian front made 
a general attack on the Italians. The Italians, taken 
by surprise, lost heavily. They were driven back 
along the front for about twenty miles until they 
came to their own frontier. Crown Prince Archduke 
Charles led the Austrians. It looked for a time as if 
he would succeed in carrying the war into Italian ter- 
ritory and cut off the Italian forces in the Isonzo dis- 
trict. But suddenly the Russians began a strong 
movement against Austria, forcing her to transfer 
her troops to defend that attack. 

Now the Italians changed commanders and Gen- 
eral Cadorna became Commander in Chief. By the 
ITALIANS first week in June, he had halted the 

RECOVER ALL Austrians and had begun to drive 
them back. The Italian armies gradually pushed 
them back until they were in the same position as be- 
fore the offensive began. In August the Italians set 
to work to push their line farther north. They cap- 
tured Goritz bridgehead and shortly after, the city, 
itself. Then they made an advance in the direction 
of Trieste by taking various positions on the Carso 
Plateau. This is where they stood at the end of the 
year 1916 and there was much rejoicing in Italy. 

Wlien Germany and Austria stripped the Russian 
front of their soldiers Russia saw her opportunity. 
BRUssiLOFF INVADES With a great army and a vast 
GALiciA (1916) store of ammunition and heavy 



88 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE 

artillery the Russian commander, Brussiloff, at- 
tacked along a front of 150 miles on the southern 
battle line in June. The Russian army numbered 
three to one against the Austrians who defended the 
line. Brussiloff broke through, making a wide gap, 
and the Austrian troops began a headlong retreat to 
save themselves. 

They lost 300,000 men and great booty of supplies, 
munitions and artillery. In a few weeks of fighting 
the Russians pushed their enemy back for forty miles 
and won back 15,000 square miles of territory, more 
than twice what the Germans held in France. The 
Germans in four months at Verdun had pushed the 
French back less than ten miles. Germany had to 
take back her statement that Russia had been put out 
of the war. 



CHAPTER XIII 
EOUMANIA CONQUERED, 1916 

This Eussian success along with the German fail- 
ure at Verdun induced Roumania to throw in her lot 
with the Allies. So in August, 1916, she declared war 
against Austro-Hungary. Roumania said there were 
many Roumanians in Hungary, who were suffering 
from oppression and that the ambition of Austro- 
Hungary to extend her power was a menace to the 
liberty and ambition of Roumania. The way Austro- 
Hungary had treated Serbia showed that the war 
was one of conquest and territorial gain and Rou- 
mania herself was in danger of being drawn in 
and overwhelmed by the Central Powers. She said 
that the war had already shown that the Central 
Powers would tear up treaties if it suited their inter- 
ests to do so, and she was entering the war on the 
side of the Allies to hasten the end of the conflict. 

Immediately after this declaration Roumanian 
troops entered Transylvania, a part of Austria's 
ROUMANIAN ARMY empire, and met with some suc- 
IN AUSTRIA cess. But Roumaiiia had risked 

everything in this invasion of Austro-Hungary and 
left the Danube River unprotected and open to at- 
tack by the Bulgarians. We are told that Roumania 
refused at this time to listen to the advice of the Al- 
lies either as to the time when she should declare war 
or as to what campaign she would follow. At any 
rate she started out under an ill star. She was too 
late to be helped by Brussiloff's victory, which was 



90. STORY OF THE WOELD WAE 

then practically over, and Germany and Austria 
were free to concentrate their attention against her. 
So, with short sightedness, this little country threw 
her main forces at once across the Carpathian passes 
into Austro-Hungary. 

Before the month ended Roumanian armies had 
occupied Kronstadt and other cities and had full con- 
VON MACKENSEN trol of the Vulcan Pass. The CQun- 
DRIVES NORTH try was rejoicing at her splendid 
success and so were the Allies, but a sudden change 
came about. The Germans had planned their cam- 
paign against Roumania with much care. They now 
came forward with great suddenness, General Von 
Mackensen with a Turk-Bulgar army pushed his way 
through Roumania 's back door between the Danube 
and the Black Sea and began a drive north. All the 
time the Roumanian army was winning easy victories 
in Transylvania, Von Mackensen was advancing rap- 
idly taking everything in his path. At last the 
Roumanians awoke to their danger in the rear and 
recalled some of their troops to send against Von 
Mackensen. Russian troops also came in and joined 
the Roumanians in the south, and for a time they 
held Von Mackensen. 

On Roumania 's western front a German general, 
Von Falkenhayn, then led an attack against the 
VON FALKENHAYN Roumanians and defeated them 
DRIVES EAST at Hermaustadt. The Germans 

continued to win along this front, but the Rouman- 
ians stubbornly held the mountain passes. In Octo- 
ber Von Mackensen pushed farther north and took 
Constanza and the Russo-Roumanian troops re- 
treated to the north. In November Von Falkenhayn 
took several mountain passes and entered Roumania 
from the west. The Russians made a desperate at- 



EOTJMANIA CONQUERED, 1916 91 

tempt to help Eoumania by attacking the Germans 
farther north, but in the end Von Mackensen swept 
on and forced the crossing of the Danube southwest 
of Bucharest, the capital of Eoumania. Bucharest 
was now threatened from northwest, west and south. 
In December the Roumanians abandoned their cap- 
ital and the victorious Germans entered. 

The Russians screened the retreating Roumanians, 
but even with this aid they were outmaneuvered, out- 
numbered and outfought. They saw the hopelessness 
of trying to make another stand and preferred to 
save their armies from capture. So they retreated 
to the Russian frontier. 

This was the crowning victory of the German cam- 
paign. They had secured the oil wells and wheat 
GERMAN PEACE fields of Roumania and had opened 
PROPOSAL ijp several roads to Constantinople, 

one by water by way of the Danube and the Black 
Sea. An offer of general peace terms to the Allies 
was then made by the Central Powers. They offered 
their peace terms in the tone of a victorious con- 
queror. They said Germany had been forced into 
the war. In fact, the Kaiser says this on all occasions 
thinking perhaps the world, or at least the German 
people, will come to believe it. 

In the offer of peace the Central Powers offered to 
restore Belgium and evacuate the territory captured 
in northern France during the war. They wanted to 
establish an independent kingdom of Poland and 
Lithuania in Russia. But they wanted to keep Serbia 
though they promised to divide some of its territory 
with Bulgaria. They also demanded that Italy should 
give back the territory she had conquered. Germany 
further demanded that her colonies be restored to 



92 STOET OF THE WOELD WAE 

her while Constantinople should be retained by Tur- 
key. 

The Allies ignored this offer of peace from Ger- 
many, for they believed that she was willing to stop 
fighting only because she had got all that she was 
fighting for. She was demanding full control of the 
Balkans and had fairly at her command the Middle 
Europe Empire of her dreams, which was to reach 
from the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf, and this was 
her real reason for wanting peace. 

During this year of the war the Allies failed to 
strike together and thus the Central Powers using 
ALLIED their strategic railways, shifted their re- 
FAiLUEE serves back and forth to great advantage. 
The Allies needed a few lessons in ''team work.'* 
The problem of providing mountains of shells on all 
fronts was a stupendous one and to provide them so 
all could strike at once was impossible. 

Supplies to Eussia could reach her only by the 
long Trans-Siberian railway or by way of Archangel 
on the White Sea. This port, however, is frozen over 
and useless a large part of the year. But now Eussia 
has a new harbor, Alexandrovsk, on the shores of the 
Arctic Ocean. This port, though farther north than 
Archangel, is free from ice the year round on ac- 
count of the warm Gulf stream. To this port Eussia 
has now completed a railway. With American rail- 
road engineers sent to help, Eussia has begun to 
solve her transportation problems. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE CZAR LOSES HIS THEONE 

What is perhaps the most important event of 
modern times occurred on March 9, 1917. It was a 
revolution in Russia which resulted in the overthrow 
of the Czar. His downfall was accomplished with 
such dramatic suddenness that it dazed the world. 
The Czar had allowed the Russian government to 
fall into the hands of men who were in sympathy 
with Germany and traitors to the best interests of 
the nation. These pro-German officials did every- 
thing they could in the Russian campaign to aid Ger- 
many. They even attempted to make peace between 
Germany and Russia in 1916, but the Russian Duma, 
or Congress, would not consent. They succeeded, 
however. In paralyzing the army as far as fighting 
was concerned. 

Artillery was sent from France to the Roumanians 
in the fall of 1916, but through the influence of these 
German sympathizers it was lost in the Ural moun- 
tains. Ammunition sent for these guns by way of 
Archangel was held until it was destroyed by Ger- 
man agents at that port. The defeat of Roumania 
was due in great part to the lack of support from 
Russia. As long as German influence was so strong 
in Russia there was no hope for the Russian army. 
The Allies were greatly discouraged at the condition 
at the Russian capital of Petrograd. 



94 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

At last the whole Russian nation, seeing the Czar 
dominated by the enemy, came to realize that it was 
THE CZAR time for the people to assert their rights, 
ABDICATES and sooner than could be believed, the 
powerful citadel of Czarism fell like a castle built 
upon the sands. Within five days the jDeople of the 
Empire awoke and seized the government. Eegiment 
by regiment the troops of Petrograd and Moscow, 
with their commanders, went over to the people. 
Even the Czar's bodyguard of Cossacks quickly de- 
serted him. The men who had held the nation in 
their hands were cast off, a few disloyal officials were 
hanged, and the Russian congress, or Duma, took 
charge of the situation. A document was written to 
which the Czar was to be forced to affix his signature 
and abdicate the throne of Russia. With this docu- 
ment they proceeded to a station where they might 
halt the train on which the Czar was riding to Petro- 
grad. The Czar, deserted by his army, was helpless. 
He signed away his throne for himself and his son. 
The family of Romanoff which had ruled Russia for 
three hundred years with a mailed fist and bloody 
saber was now dethroned. Perhaps no ruler in his- 
tory will be held responsible for so much oppression, 
bloodshed and tyranny as this Nicholas Romanoff, 
Czar of Russia. 

The pro-German element had gotten control of the 
government largely through the influence of the 
Czarina who was a German princess. She had strong- 
ly opposed the war and her will was strong with her 
royal husband. But now the portraits of the Czar 
and his family were burned by the people and the 
Romanoff insignia were torn from the walls of the 
government buildings. The winter palace of the 



THE CZAR LOSES HIS THRONE 95 

Czar was taken over by the government and occupied 
by the Eussian Duma. 

The United States lost no time in recognizing the 
new Eussian republic. We soon sent some of our 
best statesmen and engineers to aid in building up 
the new state. The task before the new government 
of Eussia was enormous. It was a gigantic problem 
to change the whole governmental plan, and to do 
this while the country was at war was stupendous. 
The railroads of Eussia are miserably insufficient 
and there are no good roads. This makes the prob- 
lem of feeding the cities and the armies very difficult. 
The Eussian masses are uneducated and do not un- 
derstand very well what liberty and self-government 
mean. For a time they refused to be bound by ordi- 
nary laws after being ruled for so long by terror and 
an iron hand. 

For many months Eussia was unable to do much 
fighting. The new government exerted every effort 
to supply its army and equip the millions of soldiers 
that were still available. Meantime, Germany tried 
in every way to make peace with the nation, but the 
Eussian republic stood firm and ready to aid in the 
last blow to kings that rule without the consent of 
their people. 

The throwing off by Eussia of the autocratic Czar 
and his bands of military lords changed the whole 
DEMOCRACY VS. character of the war. It has now 
AUTOCRACY bccome without doubt a war of 
democracy against autocracy. That is, a war to es- 
tablish the rule of the people against the tyranny of 
kings. The Central Powers of Germany, Austria 
and Turkey are about the only nations left in the 
world who support the divine right of kings. Fight- 
ing for democracy are England, France, Belgium, 



96 STOBY OF THE WORLD WAB 

Russia, Italy, Roumania, Japan, the United States 
and Greece, besides several smaller nations. 

It is now a war for freedom. We wish to see all 
nations free to live and develop safe from the iron 
hand of German militarism. There can be no peace 
with Germany without victory, because without this, 
Germany will still be in the hands of the ambitious 
Kaiser and his war lords. The world has learned 
that these men can not be trusted. We could soon 
have peace if the German people would remove the 
Kaiser and his military aristocrats and let their peo- 
ple rule the empire. We have nothing but admira- 
tion for the sturdy, industrious citizens of Germany. 



CHAPTER XV 
SUBMARINE WARFARE 

One of the new engines of death which has come 
largely into use in this war and which at last brought 
us into conflict with Germany, is the submarine. The 
Germans call it the "Unter See" or U-boat. It was 
invented in the United States, but Germany and 
other nations have developed it until it is a powerful 
weapon in sea warfare. 

The submarine is made of a thin shell of steel 
about half an inch thick so as not to be heavy. Thus 
it is easily sunk by a small gun shell. The U-boat is 
"propelled on the surface of the water by gasoline 
power, but when submerged it must move by elec- 
tricity. The U-boat can remain under water for sev- 
eral days if it is motionless, but if it uses up its elec- 
tric power to move about it must come to the surface 
in about six hours to recharge its batteries. This is 
the time when our motor boats and destroyers can 
get in their work. 

When the U-boat is just under the water it can see 
all about it on the surface for several miles by means 
of a periscope, which is a seeing tube extending from 
the boat above the water. The periscope is fitted 
with mirrors and lenses which enables the man under 
water to see any approaching ship. When the image 
of its victim crosses a certain hair line seen in the 
periscope, it is time for the gunner in the submarine 
to fire his torpedo. 

The modern automobile torpedo is a cigar-shaped 



98 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE 

object 22 feet long and 21 inches in diameter and 
THE weighs nearly a ton. When shot from the 

TORPEDO XJ-boat it steers itself and plows unseen 
through the water at a speed of forty miles an hour. 
It will travel six miles before it is spent. The tor- 
pedo has three parts ; the warhead, or front section, 
contains three or four hundred pounds of explosives. 
The central chamber, or air flask, contains com- 
pressed air to run the tiny turbine engine. Lastly, 
the tail end of the torpedo has a wonderful engine 
that turns the propeller blades. It develops 160 
horsepower and starts the torpedo at the rate of 
nearly a mile a minute, but it gradually loses speed. 

It requires almost a thousand i^ieces of steel, brass 
and bronze to make the delicate automatic mechan- 
ism of the torpedo. A long time is required to make 
one, and each torpedo costs about $6,000. Therefore 
the U-boats save them for sure shots. It is fired 
from a tube about twenty feet long, well greased in- 
side so the weapon will slip out easily. It is sent 
forth, or fired, by compressed air. Immediately upon 
striking the water the torpedo comes to life. Its tur- 
bine engine and propellers start driving it at a swift 
pace straight towards the target. After dealing its 
blow the missile disappears in its own ruin. In case 
it misses the target the motor power gradually runs 
down and the torpedo becomes a dangerous floating 
mine. The Germans are now said to use a smoking 
device which will enable them to locate their expen- 
sive weapon by its own smoke in case it is a miss. In 
this way they can recover it and use it again. 

The course of the torpedo is plainly visible because 
of the white streak of air bubbles caused by the air 
exhaust of the torpedo engine. Many ships are now 



SUBMARINE WARFARE 99 

being sunk by gunfire from the submarines without 
even the cost of a torpedo. 

The best known device to protect a ship from a 
torpedo is the torpedo net. This chain net is slung 
A SHIP'S about the ship at a sufficient distance to 
DEFENSE prevent the shock of the explosion from 
injuring the hull. The net is supposed to explode the 
torpedo. Then net-cutters were attached to the war- 
heads of the torpedoes, which cut a hole large 
enough for the torpedo to pass through unexploded. 
As the net offers a great hindrance to a ship while 
in motion, it is used only when the fleet is at rest. 
The fleet is best protected when in a harbor guarded 
by a mine field at the harbor's entrance, and by 
heavy chain netting to prevent the passage of tor- 
pedoes and submarines. Every day new devices are 
found to make the submarine more destructive and 
hundreds of men are working on means of defense 
and destruction against it. 

Wlien a battleship fleet takes to the open sea it is 
protected in two ways : First, it has a screen of des- 
troyer ships steaming in a wedge-shaped formation 
in front and others in a line on either side of the 
battleship column. It is the duty of this screen to 
meet the attack of the enemy and to sink or drive off 
his flotillas before they get within firing range of the 
main fleet. In the second place, each battleship has a 
torpedo defense battery of rapid-fire 5-inch and 6- 
inch guns which can pour a perfect stream of high 
explosive shells at any torpedo boat or submarine 
that breaks through the destroyer screen. 

However, the best defense of a ship in battle is 
its high speed and its power to turn quickly, whereby 
it can avoid torpedoes or ram the submarines. 



CHAPTER XVI 
THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR 

In order to understand tlie quarrel between Ger- 
many and the United States wliich has brought us 
to armed conflict we must go back to the beginning 
of the World War. We remember that in a few 
months after the Germans started hostilities, Eng- 
land's mammoth war fleet drove German commerce 
from the sea and bottled up the Kaiser's warships 
in the Kiel Canal. There they have remained to this 
day except for short raids into the North Sea. 
England's plan was to starve Germany out as the 
only way to conquer her, for she saw that the Cen- 
tral Powers could hardly be overcome on the land. 
By this blockade England cut off neutral ships from 
reaching the Central Powers, except those of 
Sweden, which might cross the Baltic. 

Germany defied the world to starve her. The 
German government took control of all food supplies 
in the Empire, calculated just how much was neces- 
sary for each person, and by doling them out spar- 
ingly to the peojole by means of food cards she has 
kept them from starvation. She tried to limit rich 
and poor alike to just enough to keep them going. 
For example, butter once a week, an egg once a 
month, and meat only occasionally obtained through 
the dealers. These conditions brought great hard- 
ship to many people. They suffered most from lack 
of fats. 

Now, there is an understanding among all nations 



THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR 101 

as to what is fair and legal between nations in times 
ENGLAND STOPS of War. This is known as inter- 
NEUTRAL SHIPS national law. According to inter- 
national law a nation may blockade the ports of its 
enemies and cut off the commerce. We did this in 
the Civil War by blockading our southern ports 
and shutting off the trade of the Confederacy with 
the outside world. 

But a blockade of ports to be within law requires 
that warships which stop shipping shall be sta- 
tioned about the mouth of the harbor. England, 
instead of stationing her warships at the mouths of 
the German harbors, stationed them far out at sea 
for safety, thus creating a great zone through 
which she forbade the passage of all shipping to 
German sea-ports. Moreover, England made many 
new sea rules that would help her in crushing Ger- 
many. Since the German government had taken 
over all food supplies of the Empire, England said 
she would stop ships carrying food to those neutrals 
who were shipping to Germany. 

For a long time Germany got considerable trade 
from the neutral world. It came through such neu- 
SUPPLIES tral countries as Switzerland, 

PEGM NEUTRALS Norway, Sweden, Denmark and 
Holland. The British fleet kept cutting down the 
number of food ships to the neutral countries just 
named until she thought they were getting only 
enough to satisfy their own needs, and Germany felt 
the pangs of hunger more and more keenly. 

Now, England had no legal right to stop ships 
from one neutral country to another, especially 
when they carried only food and non-contraband 
articles. But England decided that since these neu- 
tral nations were supplying Germany from their 



102 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

surplus she would stop the ships, right or not. 
When England stopped neutral ships she paid for 
their cargo. 

Germany, of course, protested. So did the United 
States. President Wilson demanded that England 
cease to violate the rules of international law and 
that she no longer stop our ships bound for neutral 
countries. England paid little attention to our pro- 
test and we did not insist as we might have done. 
We might have brought England to time if we had 
been determined to do so. But our merchants were 
selling to the Allies at great profit and they did not 
object very strongly to England's illegal acts. 
Moreover there was an overwhelming sentiment here 
in favor of the Allies. Even then the American 
people, except certain foreign born, felt that the 
Allies were fighting our battles and we hoped they 
would win without our help. This was also, per- 
haps, the feeling of our government. As we did 
not force England to obey international law to the 
letter, Grermany was enraged and said that she would 
make her own rules for her submarines. 

Germany's second and real quarrel with us was 
because we furnished guns and ammunitions to the 
MUNITIONS Allies. When Germany failed to get 

TEOM AMERICA the spccdy victory which she antici- 
pated, it soon appeared that artillery and munitions 
would play a greater part in the victory when it did 
come than ever before in warfare. Germany was 
well supplied with guns and munitions, for she had 
encouraged the Krupp munitions factories, which 
had grown to be the greatest in the world. But no 
Allied nation was prepared to furnish great moun- 
tains of munitions. Germany had sold munitions 
to other nations in time of war, but when the Allies 



THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR 103 

turned to America for war supplies, which we were 
glad to furnish and in great quantities, Germany- 
protested. 

The United States declared we were violating no 
law. We said we would willingly supply Germany 
with ammunition, too, if she would come and get it. 
We pointed out the fact that Germany had always 
supplied munitions for other nations at war. But, 
of course, Germany was prevented from getting sup- 
plies from us by the English blockade, and when she 
saw great ship loads of shells going from America 
to England to be used against German armies, she 
was very bitter. She sent an army of spies to our 
country to blow up factories and to do anything 
they could to injure munition plants or ships that 
carried munitions. Many terrible and costly explo- 
sions occurred. This aroused America, but it did 
not stop the munition trade. 

At length Germany determined to use her sub- 
marines recklessly. She had been only moderately 
SUBMARINES successful in using them against the 
TURNED LOOSE Allied war fleet, so now she deter- 
mined to use them to sink all enemy merchant ships 
at sight, no matter what was on board. Interna- 
tional law required that before sinking an enemy 
merchant ship she must find out if she carried con- 
traband goods and, above all, she must save the crew 
and passengers. Now, it was impracticable for a 
submarine to hail a ship and board her. In the 
first place the merchant ships were often speedy 
and ran away. Or, if they did stop, what could 
the submarine do with all the passengers and the 
crew? 

So, on February 4, 1915, the Germans declared 
that they would consider the waters surrounding 



104 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR 

Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole of 
the English Channel, to be comprised within the 
seat of war. They said they would sink, without 
regard to law, all enemy merchant ships seen in 
these waters without warning. They forewarned 
neutral powers not to continue to entrust their 
crews, passengers, or merchandise to Allied mer- 
chant vessels and urged them to steer clear of these 
waters. They said the German navy had been 
instructed to abstain from all violence against neu- 
tral vessels if they could be recognized as such, but 
they reminded them that it would not always be 
possible to prevent a neutral vessel from becoming 
the victim of an attack directed toward a vessel of 
the enemy. 

The Germans hoped by means of submarine war- 
fare to stop the flow of ammunition and food sup- 
THE LusiTANTA pHes to Great Britain and France. 
MASSACRE President Wilson promptly in- 

formed Germany that her U-boat campaign was 
unlawful and that she would be held to account for 
any harm done to American citizens. Ninety-one 
merchant ships, many of which were neutral, were 
sunk by the submarines or by mines, in three months 
after the ''war zone" decree. In two cases Ameri- 
can citizens, who were on board, lost their lives. 
The climax came, however, with the sinking of the 
Lusitania, an English liner, on May 7, 1915, without 
warning, with a loss of 1150 lives. Many of the 
passengers were women and children and over a 
hundred of them were American citizens. 

A wave of horror and indignation at this outrage 
swept over the United States and for a time imme- 
diate war threatened. But as we were utterly 
unprepared for war, and as our people ardently 



THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR 105 

prayed to keep out of the conflict, we relied upon our 
President to bring Germany to her senses. Knowing 
our unreadiness for war, Germany was not very 
fearful of us. On the contrary there was wild rejoic- 
ing in the Fatherland over this horrible murder of 
our people because the Germans believed it would 
stop the munitions trade. President Wilson wrote a 
strong protest to Germany. While war feeling ran 
high our President kept cool. One government 
communication followed another for several months 
between Germany and the United States without 
satisfaction. 

Germany tried to justify her submarine policy 
by saying that British merchant ships were arming 
GERMANY TRIES themsclvcs and that they were 
TO EXPLAIN authorized to ram her submarines, 
and that the officers were even given rewards for 
doing it. Germany explained that if the commander 
of the submarine that sank the Lusitania had under- 
taken to save the crew and passengers it would have 
meant the certain destruction of the submarine, for 
the U-boat would have been rammed by the Lusi- 
tania or the speedy liner would have fled. She said 
her reason for sinking the Lusitania was because 
she was carrying munitions. President Wilson's 
protests did not bring about much change in the 
cruel methods of the submarine, but Germany 
seemed to have ceased to torpedo without warning 
and saving crews. 

However, Germany continued to sink scores of 
ships belonging to Norway, Sweden, Holland, Den- 
THE ARABIC mark and the United States. The 
SUNK crews were often set adrift in open 

boats far from land. At length in August the liner, 
Arabic, was torpedoed and sunk without warning. 



106 STOEY OF THE WOKLD WAR 

Twenty passengers, including several Americans, 
were drowned. America was again ready to fight. 

Germany then promised that there would be no 
more cases of this kind, but she had never been 
willing to make the affair of the Lusitania right. 
By this time the English fleet of trawlers and swift 
motorboats, and nets had bagged most of the first 
fleet of German U-boats. The early submarines 
had very noisy engines and the British ships were 
fitted with hearing devices by which they could 
locate a moving submarine even when it was com- 
pletely submerged. When Germany saw her under- 
sea fleet captured and destroyed she made promises 
of better behavior. In the meantime she was build- 
ing another fleet of submarines. 

From the results of the year 1915 it appeared 
to be reasonably certain that the submarine cam- 
paign had failed. The British government, instead 
of relaxing her blockade, had drawn more tightly 
her restrictions. Although considerable injury had 
been inflicted upon the merchant ships of the Allies 
and of neutrals the flow of munitions to the Allies 
had not been seriously disturbed. 

For six months after the Arabic case, little hap- 
pened to ships to complain about. But while Ger- 
many was pretending to reason with the United 
States she was only seeking time to get another 
under-sea fleet ready. 

In March, 1916, the liner, Sussex, was torpedoed 
without warning with a loss of fifty passengers. 
GERMANY BREAKS The United States then informed 
PROMISES German}^ that our patience was 

at an end that we would break otf all relations with 
her and send her minister home unless she should 
immediately cease her method of submarine warfare 



THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR 107 

against freight and passenger vessels. We de- 
manded that before firing she should warn a mer- 
chant ship to stop, and that she place passengers 
and crew in safety before sinking the vessel, accord- 
ing to international law. Germany again promised 
that merchant vessels should not be sunk without 
warning and without saving human lives. She was 
careful, however, to leave a loophole so that she 
might break her promise if she found it to her 
advantage. 

On January 31, 1917, having more submarines 
ready, Germany pointed out to us that England had 
MORE BROKEN failed to respect the freedom of the 
PROMISES seas and the rules of international 

law. Therefore, Germany again announced that she 
would sink all ships in certain limits around Eng- 
land and France and in the Mediterranean, which 
she would mark off as a war zone. She said she 
would sink them, whether enemy or neutral, warship 
or merchant ship. Germany informed the United 
States that we might send one ship a week to Eng- 
land provided we painted the vessel with stripes so it 
could be easily recognized. The ocean has always 
been a free public highway, free to all nations for 
trade. In these waters the Kaiser now told us he 
would sink all neutral ships. German promises were 
not only broken and our rights trampled on, as 
before, but she now attacked our merchant ships. 
America was wild with anger at the insult. 

President "Wilson at once broke off relations with 
Germany and sent her minister. Von Bernstorff, 
home. It was evident that war was coming in spite 
of all that we could do. We could not give up all 
our rights for the sake of peace, much as we longed 
to keep out of this wretched struggle. England was 



108 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

stopping neutral ships, to be sure, but such injury 
might be paid for. Germany was sinking them, and 
above all, she was murdering our citizens. 

Then came the word that Germany had sent a 
note to Mexico asking that country to induce Japan 
GERMAN PLOTS to joiu her in a war on the United 
BEING WAR States, suggesting that they take 

from us Texas and California. This contemptible 
scheme to involve the nations on the western con- 
tinent was the climax. Our Monroe doctrine, which 
pledges the protection of all America by the United 
States, meant nothing to the Kaiser. When this 
plot with Mexico became known to the American 
people, they rose in their wrath and declared that 
the only reply we could make was to declare war 
at once. 

President Wilson called Congress together, and 
in a notable address, which will live in history, he 
stated our difficulties and related the insults heaped 
upon us by the Kaiser and his war nobles. On April 
6, 1917, Congress declared that a state of war existed 
between the United States and Germany. 

The Kaiser thought we would not fight. He 
thought we could not get troops across the sea. He 
believed that all German-American citizens would 
be loyal to Germany in case of war, but in all these 
matters he was mistaken. The simple story of why 
we are at war has been given by Secretary Lane to 
the people of the United States, and from this 
address the paragraphs in the next chapter are 
taken. President Wilson's address, given in the 
appendix of this book, should be studied over and 
over again and parts of it memorized. 



CHAPTER XVII 
WHY WE ARE AT WAR WITH GERMANY 

''Why are we fighting Germany? The brief 
answer is that ours is a war of self-defense. We did 
SECRETARY LANE'S not wish to fight Germany. She 
ADDRESS made the attack upon us ; not on 

our shores, but on our ships,, our lives, our rights 
and our future. For two years and more we held 
to a neutrality which made us apologists for things 
which outraged man's common sense of fair play 
and humanity. The invasion of Belgium, the killing 
of civilian Belgians, the attacks on defenseless 
towns, the laying of mines in neutral waters. 

**We said: 'This is war — uncivilized war. All 
rules have been thrown away, all nobility, Man has 
come down to the primitive brute. And while we 
cannot justify, we will not intervene. This is not 
our war.' 

"We talked as men would talk who cared only for 
peace and the advancement of their own material 
interests, until we discovered that we were thought 
to be mere money-makers, devoid of all character — 
until, indeed, we were told that we could not walk 
the highways of the world without permission of a 
Prussian soldier ; that our ships might not sail with- 
out wearing a striped uniform of humiliation upon 
a narrow path of national subservience. 

"We talked as men talk who hope for honest 
agreement, not for war, until we found that the 
treaty torn to pieces at Liege, was but the symbol 



110 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

of a policy that made agreements worthless against 
a purpose that knew no word but success. 

*'We are fighting Germany because she sought to 
terrorize us and then to fool us. We could not 
believe that Germany would do what she said she 
would do upon the seas. We still hear the piteous 
cries of the children coming up out of the seas where 
the Lusitania went down. And Germany has never 
asked forgiveness of the world. We saw the Sussex 
sunk, crowded with the sons and daughters of neu- 
tral nations. We saw ship after ship sent to the 
bottom — ships of mercy bound out of America for 
the Belgian starving — ships carrying the Eed Cross, 
laden with the wounded of all nations — ships carry- 
ing food and clothing to friendly, harmless, terror- 
ized people — ships flying the Stars and Stripes — 
sent to the bottom hundreds of miles from shore, 
manned by American seamen, murdered against all 
law without warning. 

"We held our anger and outrage in check. But 
now we see that she was holding us off with fair 
promises until she could build her huge fleet of 
submarines. For when spring came, she blew her 
promises into the air, just as in the beginning she 
had torn up that ^ scrap of paper.' Then we 
clearly saw that there was but one law for Germany, 
her will to rule. 

*'We are fighting Germany because she violated 
our confidence. Paid German spies filled our cities. 
Officials of her government, received as the guests 
of the nation, lived with us to bribe and terrorize, 
defying our laws and the law of nations. We are 
fighting Germany because while we were yet her 
friend, the only power that held hands off, she sent 
the Zimmerman note, calling to her aid Mexico, 



WHY WE ARE AT WAR WITH GERMANY 111 

our southern neighbor, and hoping to lure Japan, 
our western neighbor, into war against this nation 
of peace. 

' ' The nation that would do these things proclaims 
that government has no conscience. This doctrine 
cannot live, or else democracy must die. There can 
be no living for us in a world where the state has no 
reverence for the things of the spirit, no respect for 
international law, no mercy for those that fall before 
its force. Let Germany be feudal if she will, but she 
must not spread her gospel that the state can do no 
wrong over the world. 

''Let this old spirit of evil have its way and no 
man will live in America without paying toll to it. 
This spirit might demand Canada from a navyless 
England and then our dream of peace on the north 
would be at an end. We would live as France has 
lived for forty years, in haunting terror. 

''America speaks for the world in fighting Ger- 
many. Mark on a map those countries which are 
Germany's allies and you will mark but four, run- 
ning from the Baltic through Austria and Bulgaria 
to Turkey. All the other nations, the whole globe 
round, are either in arms against her or unable to 
move. There is deep meaning in this. 

"We fight for an honest world in which nations 
keep their word; for a world in which nations do 
not live by swagger or by threat; for a world in 
which men think of the ways in which they can con- 
quer the common cruelties of nature instead of in- 
venting more horrible cruelties to inflict upon the 
spirit and body of man; for a world in which the 
ambition or the philosophy of a few (the war lords) 
shall not make miserable all mankind ; for a world 
in which the man is held more precious than the 
machine, the system, or the state." 



CHAPTER XVIII 
AMERICA'S AID TO HER ALLIES 

That our country is a unit in this war was shown 
by Congress when it passed the appropriation bill 
for the war unanimously in both houses. The bill 
called for seven billion dollars, which is the largest 
loan bill in the history of the world. 

Our nation started out to aid the Allies in different 
ways. First, to help put the submarines out of 
action and protect the shipping of the United States. 
The newer submarines have noiseless engines and 
are able to make long voyages. They can stay away 
from the home base for many days. They are very 
hard to capture. As they were sinking ships in 
large numbers England began to tremble for her food 
supplies, which must come largely from abroad. 
The United States sent a fleet of destroyers, under 
Admiral Sims, to European waters, where they soon 
began to show good results. 

To replace the hundreds of ships that have been 
sunk, our country has set apart millions of dollars 
to build merchant ships, both of wood and of steel, 
as rapidly as possible. General Goethals, the builder 
of the Panama Canal, has been given charge of the 
shipbuilding. 

Secondly, we are expected to feed the Allies to 
the end of the war. So many farmers in England 
FOOD AND and France had gone to the front to fight 
MONEY that the Allied nations were not raising 



AMERICA'S AID TO HER ALLIES 113 

as much food as they did before the war. Food prices 
soared and we know that a hungry army cannot 
fight. Our people set out to raise bumper crops of 
all food products during the season of 1917. Thou- 
sands of new gardens were planted by city people 
to help in the food supply, and high school boys were 
sent to the farms in large numbers to enable the 
farmers to raise as great an acreage of wheat, corn 
and potatoes as possible. 

The Allies called upon us also for money. We 
are the richest nation in the world, and we promptly 
replied that we would loan them three billion dollars 
at a low rate of interest. In order to get ready 
money, the United States said they would ask their 
people to buy two billion dollars worth of bonds. 
This was called the Liberty Loan. With great 
patriotism our people not only subscribed for two 
billion dollars, but for three billions, a billion dollars 
more than they had been asked for. Now our Allies 
are enabled to buy food, steel, copper and a hundred 
other things which they need. 

The great generals and statesmen of the Allied 
countries which came to our shores for a friendly 
visit and to take counsel with the leaders of our 
government were all received with great honor and 
enthusiasm. Especially was this true of General 
Joffre, of France, the hero of the Marne. 

The United States has much sympathy for Eussia 
which is struggling to establish a republic. We sent 
some of our leading statesmen, among them Elihn 
Root, to give them advice as to how they should start 
a republic. And we sent engineers to help them to 
build railroads and aid them in carrying on the war, 
for a victory by the Kaiser would be a death blow 
to their new republic, and it might restore the Czar 



114 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR 

to his throne. 

France and England, Italy and Eussia sent rep- 
resentatives to our country. Among other things 
u. s. SOLDIERS they desired that we should send 
IN rEANCE them at least a small army as quickly 
as possible to encourage their brave defenders in 
France. General Pershing was soon in Paris getting 
ready for our men. Food ships reached France 
safely and landed a big supply of food for our army. 
In spite of the U-boats a body of our troops were 
welcomed in France late in June. They celebrated 
the Fourth of July in Paris amid great enthusiasm. 

Congress, in order to get a large American army 
ready for 1918 ordered all our young men between 
the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one to register 
their names, and we found that they numbered 
nearly ten millions of fighting age. From these our 
first army was drafted. President Wilson also 
called out all the national guards for war service. 

During the war many neutral countries aided the 
Allies in trying to save the millions of starving 
people in the regions Germany had conquered. The 
United States sent Herbert C. Hoover to Belgium 
to see that the food supply sent by our country and 
the Allies reached the needy French and Belgians. 
When the United States took up arms Mr. Hoover 
was called home and made food administrator to 
look after the providing of food for us and our 
Allies. President Wilson issued an embargo to stop 
the shipping of food, munitions and steel to neutral 
nations to prevent these supplies from reaching 
Germany through such neutrals as Holland, Den- 
mark and Sweden. The world was short of food, 
especially wheat, and American housewives united 
behind Mr. Hoover to give their aid. 



CHAPTER XIX 
CAMPAIGN OF 1917 

WEST FRONT 

Bad weather interrupted the British advance at 
the Somme early in the autumn of 1916, and had it 
BATTLE OF not been for this the Germans would 
AERAS likely have had to retreat before winter 

set in. But as it was, the German line held. The 
British officers were confident, however, of breaking 
the German line in the spring of 1917. Early in 
February, 1917, there began the great German 
retreat which in March broadened into the most 
considerable withdrawal of the Germans since the 
Battle of the Marne. 

They retreated for two reasons: First, in the 
Somme campaign the British had forced a wedge 
into the German lines in such fashion that the Ger- 
mans were threatened on the flank and the rear. In 
addition to this the British had driven squarely 
through the old system of the Kaiser's trench lines 
for many miles and the walls that the Germans had 
thrown up were not calculated to withstand another 
such attack as they had suffered at the Somme. 

So the Germans drew out of this half circle and 
fell back gradually to a line between Arras and 
A DESERT IN Soissons. There they build a new trench 
FRANCE line forty miles shorter than the other, 
known as the Hindenburg line. The retreat was a 
model of German efficiency. They left to the British 
only a few guns and about 1400 prisoners. They 



116 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

laid waste the country over which they retreated, 
burning all buildings, cutting down orchards and 
ruining wells and made a desert some 20 miles in 
width. 

The French and British had to advance over this 
desert and cover it with new lines of communication. 
Much of their preparation for the spring offensive 
was made useless. Their great railroad depots and 
supply stations had been constructed directly behind 
the old front and now had to be moved forward to 
the new line, which was a laborious undertaking. 
The Germans believed that this maneuver would 
hinder a British attack for several months. 

North of Arras the Germans still held their old 
lines. Here the English trenches were still close 
ABRAS upon those of the enemy. The Ger- 

BATTLEFIELD niaus wcro protected near Arras by 
Vimy Ridge which is about 500 feet high. The Ger- 
man gun positions were behind this ridge. The 
French had worked for three months to take Vimy 
Ridge only to lose it again. If you should stand on 
the Ridge and look east you would see almost at 
your feet the city of Lens, with its vast suburbs 
built around the entrance to the coal mines, for Lens 
is the great coal center of France. 

If the British could gain possession of Vimy 
Ridge they would dominate Lens and clear out the 
Germans from the suburbs of Arras and deprive 
them of their good gun positions. This would force 
the Germans into a bad position in the broad plain 
of the valley. The Germans thought their lines 
upon Vimy could not be taken. Had they not made 
it a '' graveyard of the French" in 1915? Not less 
than 100,000 Frenchmen had been killed and 
wounded at this same mountain. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1917 llr 

The Battle of Arras opened with what was prob- 
ably the greatest battle in the air np to this time. 
The British had for some months been at a disad- 
vantage because the German airplanes were supe- 
rior. But now the British had brought out a new 
machine of their own in large numbers. With these 
numerous flyers the British prevented the Germans 
from coming up in the air and thus deprived the 
German gunners of all guidance in firing. 

The British attacked on a front of a dozen miles. 
The northern attack was made by the Canadians at 
OVER viMY Vimy Ridge. They pushed straight up 
RIDGE to the summit of the Ridge and in a few 

hours were over the top. They fought their way 
through all the old German defenses and crossed 
the old enemy line, but the Germans were building 
a new line back of these positions for just this 
emergency. In a few daj^s the Kaiser's army had 
lost 15,000 men and 100 guns, many of them of great 
size. This loss was doubled within a week. 

The Germans, finding themselves in a critical situ- 
ation, attempted to regain Vimy Ridge, but the 
Canadians held, and the British victory was thus far 
complete. The Germans now surrendered the last 
position on the hill and fell back near Lens. In one 
week the English had regained more territory than 
they had won in the six months of the Battle of 
the Somme. 

However, the Germans merely retreated to their 
new lines, though no new position could be as strong 
as that of the Vimy fort, which all had believed it 
was impossible to take. It was reported that the 
German courage in this struggle was below the 
standard of the past. Many German soldiers threw 
down their arms and surrendered. Early in the war 



118 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE 

German troops were far better equipped than their 
foes, but now this was reversed. The British were 
better equipped and in better fighting strength than 
the Germans. Germany and France had already 
sacrificed their finest troops but England had just 
reached its best. It had taken England more than 
two years to prepare for war, but she had achieved 
what the Germans believed she could never do. We 
must not fail to give Canada her full share of glory 
in this brilliant victory of Arras. 

In May, 1917, the British surprised the Germans 
by a drive on Messines Ridge opposite Ypres. The 
MESSINES British had burrowed under the German 
RIDGE works and buried six hundred tons of 

explosives. For six days the British bombarded the 
hill with fearful effect and had brought down nearly 
50 enemy planes. Then, when all was ready for 
the infantry to advance, the mines were exploded 
which spread terror and panic among the German 
troops. One hill was blown off the map. The 
explosion was heard in London, over a hundred and 
forty miles away. 

The British took the German works and 6,000 
prisoners. Again the British showed their superi- 
ority over the Germans in the air, in artillery and in 
all details of trench fighting. They used boiling oil 
to good effect and did much damage. A captured 
German soldier wrote home as follows: "Since 
April 29 I am in the trenches near Ypres, where an 
offensive is now taking place. The drumfire has 
shot everything to little bits ; there is almost nothing 
more of the trenches to see. 

"We have had terrible losses. Half of my com- 
pany are dead or wounded. It is a terrible life; it 



CAMPAIGN OF 1917 ^ 119 

will soon be unbearable. He is best off wlio gets a 
bullet and need no longer knock about. 

* ' The Englisliman blows everything to bits he can 
see. He bombards everything. He has also blown 
our kitchen to pieces, so we don't get any warm 
food; only dry stuff." 

EASTERN FRONT 

After the British failure and surrender at Kut-el- 
Amara nothing was done in this region for many 
ON THE TURKISH months. At length the British re- 
rEONT, 1917 sumed their campaign in Mesopo- 

tamia, and in March, 1917, they captured Bagdad, 
which bids fair to wreck the Middle Europe plan of 
Germany. It is also the first step in freeing the 
Arabs from the yoke of the Turks. 

The Eussians, in the meantime, have pushed 
around the east end of the Black Sea to Trebizond. 
The plan is that the British shall drive north from 
Bagdad to Mosul and join the Russian army coming 
from the east, thus freeing Persia from the rule of 
the Turks. Another British army came up out of 
Egypt and reached the gates of Jerusalem. With 
Bagdad and Palestine in British hands the Turkish 
power in Syria is shaken. Mecca has passed into the 
hands of the Arabs and thus the Turk is deprived of 
his holy city. 

But as long as the Turks hold Constantinople and 
the Bulgar and Austrian armies guard the road from 
the Danube to that city, the larger part of the Ger- 
man plan of a Middle Europe empire is unbroken, 
in spite of the fall of Bagdad and Jerusalem. If 
Germany can hold the country to the Balkans in this 
war she will be ready in another war to complete her 
scheme and control the country to the Persian Gulf. 



120 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

The Italians made progress toward Trieste in tlie 
spring of 1917, taking many positions of the enemy 
together with prisoners and guns, but the drive was 
at length halted. They held their gains, however, 
and were within a dozen miles of the harbor of 
Trieste, which they covet. 

The Russians, under Brussiloff, aroused by the 
patriot orator, Kerensky, surprised the world with 
FREE RUSSIA a stroug drive made in July, 1917, in 
STRIKES the direction of Lemberg. The Rus- 

sian soldiers fought better because they realized 
they were fighting for their own rights. They took 
several villages and towns and 36,000 prisoners, 
together with many guns. But what was far more 
important, they gave notice by this attack that the 
Russian troops were still in the fighting in spite of 
the efforts of Germany to coax them into a separate 
and disloyal peace. This victory had a wonderful 
effect on the new Russian republic. 

In June, 1917, the King of Greece was forced to 
abdicate on account of his sympathy with the Ger- 
man cause. His second son succeeded to the throne 
and Venizelos, the popular hero of the Greeks, was 
restored to a place at the head of the government. 
Greece then broke off relations with the Central 
Powers and began putting her army in fighting 
trim. This made the fourteenth nation to declare 
war on the Kaiser and the war lords of Germany. 

During the spring and summer of 1917 the Ger- 
man submarines were sinking ships several times as 
fast as the shipyards of the world could replace 
them. America and her Allies were wrestling with 
the problem of combating the submarine peril. 
Thousands of inventors and scientists, including 
Thomas A. Edison, wer^ working on inventions for 



CAMPAIGN OF 1917 121 

this purpose. Germany was counting on her under- 
sea fleet to force peace on her own terms. 

The Allies were holding on, waiting for the United 
States to get her vast armies of men and her great 
supplies of munitions ready to give Germany the 
final blow. Both the west front in France and the 
Italian front were in a deadlock which could not be 
broken without terrible cost of life, and the nations 
all wanted to save these men to help rebuild and 
repair damages in their home countries when peace 
should come. How much Russia might do in the 
rest of the year was a question that could not be 
answered. 

The war had lasted for three years, the most 
momentous years of history, and all the nations 
THREE YEARS louged for peace. The German lead- 
er CONFLICT ej.g were ready for peace if they could 
keep the territory they had seized. The Allies, on 
the other hand, wanted peace, but they would not 
consent to lay down arms until the German people 
had trimmed the wings of the Kaiser and his war 
lords and adopted some measure of self rule. All 
the world fears the present power of the Kaiser 
and will not trust him so long as he has full power 
to do as he pleases, regardless of the wishes of his 
people. The Allies are now fighting to make the 
world safe for nations, great and small, against 
autocracy. They are not willing that the great 
struggle shall end until the world is free. 



PRESIDENT WILSON'S WAR MESSAGE 

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because 
there are serious, very s-erious, choices of policy to be made, and 
made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally 
permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making. 

On the third of February last, I officially laid before you the 
extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government 
that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to 
put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its sub- 
marines to sink eveiy vessel that sought to approach either the 
ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe 
or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within 
the Mediterranean. 

That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine 
warfare earlier in the war; but since April of last year the Imperial 
Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its under- 
sea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that 
passenger boats should not be sunk, and that due warning would 
be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to 
destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and 
care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save 
their lives in their open boats. 

The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, aa 
was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of 
the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was 
observed. 

The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of 
every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their 
destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom 
without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those 
on board — the vessels of friendly neutrals, along with belligerents. 

Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely 
bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were 
provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the 
German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable 
marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of 
compassion or of principle. 

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would 
in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed 
to the humane practices of civilized nations. 

International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some 
law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where 
no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways 
of the world. 

By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with 
meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could 



PEESIDENT WILSON'S WAE MESSAGE 123 

be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what 
the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. 

This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside 
under the plea of retaliation and necessity, and because it had no 
weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible 
to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds 
all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that 
were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. 

I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense 
and serious' as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale 
destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women and chil- 
dren, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest 
periods of modem history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. 

Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent 
people canrot be. 

The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a 
warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. 

American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways 
which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and 
people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and 
overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no 
discrimination. 

The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for 
itself how it will meet it. 

The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a modera- 
tion of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our char- 
acter and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. 

Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of 
the physical might of the Nation, but only the vindication of right, 
of human right, of which we are only a single champion. 

When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of Febru- 
ary last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights 
with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, 
our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. 

But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because 
submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German sub- 
marines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible 
to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has 
assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against pri- 
vateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. 

It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity 
indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their 
own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with 
at all. 

The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use 
arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, 
even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever 
before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is con- 
veyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our mer- 
chant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject 
to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffec- 



124 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAR 

tual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such 
prr 'v^'''ins it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce 
what It was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw u3 
into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of bel- 
ligerents. 

There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of mak- 
ing: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most 
sacred rights of our Nation and our people to be ignored or violated. 
The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common 
wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life. 

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical char- 
acter of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities 
which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem 
my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the 
recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact 
nothing less than war against the Government and people of the 
United States ; that it formally accepts the status of belligerent which 
has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not 
only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense, but 
also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the 
Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war. 

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost 
practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the govern- 
ments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the 
extension to thos-e governments of the most liberal financial credits 
in order that our resources may, so far as possible, be added to 
theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all 
the material resources of the country to supply the materials of 
war and serve the incidental needs of the Nation in the most 
abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. 
It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all 
respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of 
dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the imme- 
diate addition to the armed forces of the United States already 
provided for by law in case of war at least five hundred thousand 
men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of 
miiversal liability to service, and also the authorization of subse- 
quent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be 
needed and can be handled in training. 

It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits 
to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably 
be sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived taxa- 
tion. I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because 
it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits 
which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is 
our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as 
we may, against the very serious hardships and evils which would 
be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by 
vast loans. 

In carrying out the measures by which these things are 'to be 
accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of 



PRESIDENT WILSON'S WAR MESSAGE 125 

interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the 
equipment of our own military forces with the duty — for it will 
be a very practical duty — of supplying the nations already at war 
with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from 
us or by our assistance. They are in the field and we should help 
them in every way to be effective there. 

I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several 
executive departments of the Government, for the consideration 
of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several 
objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to 
deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought 
by the branc' of the Government upon which the responsibility 
of conducting the war and safeguarding the Nation will most 
directly fall. 

While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let 
U3 be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our 
motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven 
from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the 
last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the Nation 
has been altered or clouded by them. 

I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind 
when I addressed the Senate on the twenty-second of January last; 
the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 
third of February and en the twenty-sixth of February. 

Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace 
and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and auto- 
cratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-gov- 
erned peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action 
as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles. 

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace 
of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the 
menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic 
governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly 
by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the 
last of neutrality in such circumstances. 

We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted 
that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong 
done shall be observed among nations and their governments that 
are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states. 

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no 
feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was 
not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this 
war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. 

It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon 
in the old, unliappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by 
their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of 
dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed 
to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. 

Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies 
or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of 
affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make con- 



126 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAR 

quest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover 
and where no one has the right to ask questions. 

Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it 
may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept 
from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the care- 
fully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are 
happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon 
full information concerning all the nation's affairs. 

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by 
a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government 
could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It 
must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. 

Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles 
who could plan what they would and render account to no one would 
be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold 
their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the 
interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own. 

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to 
our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and 
heartening things that have been happening within the last few 
weeks in Russia? 

Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always 
i& fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in 
all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural 
imtinct, their habitual attitude toward life. 

The autocracy that crowTied the summit of her political structure, 
long as it has stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was 
not in fact Russian in origin, character or purpose; and now it has 
been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been 
added in all their native majesty and might to the forces that are 
fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is 
a fit partner for a League of Honor. 

One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prus- 
sian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from 
the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting com- 
munities and even our offices of Government with spies and set crim- 
inal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of council, 
our. peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. 

Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were here even before the 
war began; and it unhappily is not a matter of conjecture, but a fact 
proved in our courts of justice, that the intrigues which have more 
than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocat- 
ing the industries of the country have been carried on at the instiga- 
tion, with the support, and even under the personal direction of 
official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Govern- 
ment of the United States. 

Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we 
have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon 
them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feel- 
ing or purpose of the German people toward us (who were, no doubt 
as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish 



PEESIDENT WILSON'S WAR MESSAGE 127 

designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its 
people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to con- 
vince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship 
for US' and means to act against our peace and security at its con- 
venience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very 
doors, the intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City 
13 eloquent evidence. 

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we 
know that in such a Government, following such methods, we can 
never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized 
power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, 
there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of 
the world. 

We are now about to accept guage of battle with this natural foe 
to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the Nation 
to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now 
that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to 
fight thus- for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation 
of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations 
great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their 
way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for 
democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations 
of political liberty. 

We have no selfisli ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no 
dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material com- 
pensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of 
the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when 
those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom 
of nations can make them. 

Just because we fight without rancor, without selfish object, seek- 
ing nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all 
free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belli- 
gerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio 
the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for. 

I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial 
Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us 
or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro- 
Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorse- 
ment and acceptance of the reckless and lawless- submarine warfare 
adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, 
and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive 
Count Tamowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Govern- 
ment by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; 
but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against 
citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for 
the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with 
the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are 
clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending 
our rights. 

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents 
in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, 



128 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR 

not in enmity toward a people nor with the desire to bring any injury 
or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an 
irresponsible Government which has thrown aside all considerations 
of humanity and of right and is running amuck. 

We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, 
and shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of in- 
timate relations of mutual advantage between us — however hard it 
may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken 
from our hearts. We have borne with their present Government 
through all these bitter months because of that friendship — exercising 
a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impos- 
sible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that 
friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of 
men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live 
amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it 
toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Gov- 
ernment in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and 
loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or al- 
legiance. 

They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining 
the few who may be of a different mind and piu'pose. 

If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand 
of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only 
here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and 
malignant few. 

It is a distressing and oppressive duty. Gentlemen of the Congress, 
which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may 
be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a 
fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the 
most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to 
be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we 
shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our 
hearts — for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority 
to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties 
of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert 
of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make 
the world itself at last free. 

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, every- 
thing that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of 
those who know that the day has come when America is privileged 
to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her 
birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God 
helping her, she can do no other. 

April 2, 1917. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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